“Teenage pregnancy has long been a problem in Sierra Leone: in 2013, the country’s rate ranked among the ten highest in the world, with 28% of girls aged 15-19 years pregnant or already having give birth at least once.”
Certainly a headline that will grab your attention. This week’s post will take us to Sierra Leone where a current discussion is being held in relation to women’s rights, specifically that of teenage girls, and even more so of those that have become pregnant while in school. From the headline it is clear that girls that become pregnant while in school are thus banned when it becomes obvious enough that they are indeed with child.
On the legal front, in Sierra Leone this ban on girls is actually legal and was enacted shortly after the outbreak of Ebola in 2015. In greater detail these girls are not allowed to attend school after a certain point and cannot take exams or partake in the “normal” school day activities we take for granted. As many will infer, most of these girls will not return to school and will unfortunately cut their formal education experience short. This ban not only hinders their education but deepens the differences between genders in this country and continues to to aggravate already existing issues.
Many point to the contradictory idea of removing girls from school, where they should be educated in health and wellness, but have not been. Many of the girls who have been interviewed have attributed this lack of education as one of the main reasons why they became pregnant at such a young age. People also look to the high rates of abuse and sexual violence that is geared toward younger women and how more focus should be placed on helping women in these situations than alienating them from their peers.
This ban is going to be two years old this coming April and was originally created during the Ebola crisis to most likely prevent further spread of the disease, which forced the country into economic crisis and saw an exponential increase in abuse and teenage pregnancy.
Amnesty International, an international non-profit focused on international law and rights based out of London, has interviewed many girls who were pregnant during this time and most spoke of how they felt alone and isolated from those they were closest too and were discouraged by the fact that their friends would continue their education without them. Many girls also recall the fear they felt when they were in school and when surrounded by family members because many times they would be abused and ashamed for their condition by teachers and authoritative figures.
Special schools were created for girls who became pregnant while in school, but these schools were created out of the negative stigma that comes from teenage pregnancy, which is something most countries have in common. However, where these countries differ is in how they handle teenage pregnancies; unfortunately in Sierra Leone it is with a hushed tone and shameful stares. Many girls say that these special schools were good, some say they were more comfortable in their new school, but almost all said they would have rather stayed in their original school, where they learned much more, but the law prevented them from doing so. New programs have been created since 2015 that are more geared to a wider range of girls who have dropped out of school for a variety of reasons—this program, supported by UNICEF and the UK government began in November 2016.
However, another legal and economic issue that plagues these girls is not that they can eventually return to their school, but that once they have a child it becomes to expensive to pay for both their education and to care for their child, given the fact that 72% of the country lives in extreme poverty.
This topic and case brings up many international issues and topics for discussion such as women’s rights, teenage pregnancy and the stigmas that surround it, education, income, health, government intervention, etc. It is interesting to compare the situation in Sierra Leone to that in our country, granted they are very different. But one similarity is the “taboo” effect on sex education and a lack of providing the proper education to youth in order to lessen the number of teenage pregnancies. There needs to a be a practical conversation in the international community about the importance of education, especially for women, and to remove the ban on education on pregnant women in Sierra Leone.
Links:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/sierra-leone-continued-pregnancy-ban-in-schools-and-failure-to-protect-rights-is-threatening-teenage
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sl.html
Click to access Sierra_Leone_National_Strategy_for_the_Reduction_of_Teenage_Pregnancy.pdf
http://www.securelivelihoods.org
Peyton,
As you pretty much concluded in your post, the issue of banning pregnant young women from participating in school covers three main issues: sexual education, fair and equal treatment of women who are pregnant, and the future education of those who have had to withdraw from school due to pregnancy. Its obvious that the government and overall society would be the ones to attack this overall issue, however, it is apparent with such high rates of poverty throughout the country and the fact that that government has not enacted programs to prevent such conditions, chances of intervention is slim. Sierra Leone is a constitutional republic with a president and parliament though, so I will try to assess some of the things that the government and other world organizations could do to address these three critical issues considering they can pass legislation.
Starting at the very root of the issue, teenage pregnancy, there should most definitely be some type of sexual education before these teenagers are making the decisions to have unprotected sex. It seems according to the interviews that you mentioned that basically all of the individuals that go through this are not given any direction when it comes to the consequences of unprotected sex or any formal education on the suject. I can definitely remembered my state-sponsored experience with sexual education. Not only did we learn what it was all about, my teacher also pushed waiting till marriage to even have sex. Since English is taught in the schools of Sierra Leone, implementing programs used here in the US seems like a reasonable option.
I look to the culture and government tone in Sierra Leone towards the issue to have the ability to change the current opinions of female equality and confronting the taboo that is teenage pregnancy. Because the country is primarily Muslim, there is no surprise that equal rights between males and females do not quite exist. This connection appears to not only involve the rights of a pregnant woman but it also the rights of a woman to go to school at all. I don’t know much about how mandatory or available the school system is to females, but I can imagine that females having a high level education is simply not a top priority of the society. I say that also taking into account the high poverty rate as well.
Lastly, the government in particular should take more responsibility in caring and enabling women to return to education after having left due to pregnancy. You mentioned that UNICEF has started this effort recently, but I assume that without backing from the federal government that majority of young women who need the service will be forgotten. Allowing such involvement from the government would also help the society in Sierra Leone to be more accepting to the young women who are struggling with this issue.
Hopefully, Sierra Leone can continue to reform itself to become more stable as a nation and reassess its societal values in order to fight the very important issue that is teenage pregnancy.
Patrick Edwards
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sl.html
Undoubtedly this is a complex issue. As much as gender politics are involved, economic and health impact of possible changes must be taken into account when attempting to change anything. Obviously, health is one of the main concerns. However, as you said, this area is impoverished. Thus, such changes in educations and so forth are likely difficult to fund. However, changing the laws would be the first place to start. But how do religious beliefs and power issues relate to the heightening of the status of women in this country through sexual education? Both women and sex education are often heavy topics for any sort of religious community. Good stuff.
Peyton, this was an informative and detailed blog post. Clearly, gender inequality in Sierra Leone is an entrenched, systemic issue that must be addressed in the nation’s political arena. I like that you explored multiple causes of Sierra Leone’s staggering teenage pregnancy rates, and that you incorporated information about ways in which activist organizations – like Amnesty International and UNICEF – have taken measurable steps to combat such archaic societal values.
This helped establish a strong sense of relevancy and depth to the piece.
I think you bring up a critical point in arguing that the lack of sex education in Sierra Leone has only exacerbated dropout rates among female students. I read an article on Amnesty International’s website to help gain a better grasp on this issue (link:https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/11/sierra-leone-continued-pregnancy-ban-in-schools-and-failure-to-protect-rights-is-threatening-teenage-girls-futures/) and the story made a very similar claim. Additionally, the Sierra Leonian government – which does not endorse sexual abuse, but does not condemn it either – has played a major role in enabling such a vicious cycle to perpetuate itself. If these concerns continue to be ignored by legislative officials, intervention from outside agencies may be necessary.
I was little confused about the justification of the education ban (I would have liked for you to discuss this in greater detail). However – if it’s true that the government felt teenage pregnancy would contribute to the transmission of Ebola – I find such reasoning as a thinly-veiled excuse to promote a culture of gender inequality. Pregnant women would not intensify the effects of the Ebola crisis, and it’s ridiculous that a government would broadcast this message to its people.
In the 21st century, it’s troubling that some countries do not uphold women’s education as an intrinsic human right. Sierra Leone must lift its educational ban on women if it wants to consider itself a supporter of humanitarianism. I hope that we continue to raise awareness of this problem and fix it before it spreads; writing about it on your blog is a great place to start.