SUDAN: Empowering Girls to Prevent
Teen Pregnancies
Photo:
UNICEF/ Stevie Mann (2002) |
Since education became free,
enrolment rates have jumped but girls still have a higher drop-out rate
because of pregnancy |
JUBA, 18 June 2007 (IRIN) -
Christine Simon, 18, still has one-and-a-half years of primary school left but
she is proud to have reached this level of education, despite growing up away
from home, with a baby to support.
"I want to read, to go on; that is
why I came back to school," Simon said in the Southern Sudan capital of Juba.
Growing up a refugee in the Central African Republic (CAR) after the
long war in Southern Sudan disrupted her education, Simon fell pregnant. She
acknowledges that she was lucky - two of her friends who became pregnant are
unlikely to get back to school. She and her former boyfriend have no interest in
getting married, leaving his mother and aunt look after the baby, Chantal, while
she is in class.
If Simon makes it to the end of next year, she will be
one of the relatively small number of girls who finish primary school in
Southern Sudan, according to the United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF).
Challenges
Simon's headmaster
reckons that as many as three-quarters of his female students drop out because
of pregnancy, some as young as 11. He and two of his colleagues have themselves
had daughters dropping out for the same reason. According to Simon, money and
gifts are often an incentive to have sex with older men as well as age mates.
Teachers say the solution is to set up girls’ boarding schools across
the state. "But then there'd still be the holidays," said one. "Really, we do
not know what is going on."
Although UNICEF officials say
that Western Equatoria has been Southern Sudan's biggest success story in terms
of boosting female enrolment - especially with the advent of peace and free
education - the numbers drop off again when the girls reach 14-16.
UNICEF's Rose Njagi said that while fewer girls in pastoralist communities
lose out on education because of pregnancy, early marriage is frequently having
the same effect.
"There is no problem for gender equity in the lower
primary classes, sometimes we even find more girls, but in the upper classes
there's a significant drop because of pregnancy and early marriage," explains
Njagi.
Peer pressure
She is working to roll out
the Girl's Education Movement across Southern Sudan, a peer-to-peer system where
girls and boys encourage others (and their parents) to go to school.
Grace Datiro, the minister for education in Western Equatoria, said she was
trying to battle the “huge problem” with school clubs, mothers’ clubs and men's
clubs as well as bringing it up in rallies across the state. Datiro is also
looking for traditional and judicial ways to deter men from having sexual
relations with schoolgirls.
"The girls are often doing it for
money, goods and because they're attracted and think they should go for it.
Instead of advising the girl, the men just take advantage. There's also the
impact of the war - our culture has sort of eroded ... the girls are
looking for their identity," said Datiro.
Njagi thinks the answer
lies with children themselves. It is unclear how much of Southern Sudan's
increase in girl enrolment from 17 to 37 per cent is a result of the new
government's policy of free education.
The focus is to
empower girls. At the end of the day it's up to them. They should be
making informed decisions, so that they can chart their own
destiny |
The key, however, is to encourage girls to
stay in school. Rather than just handing out condoms to the boys and
scare-stories to the girls, Njagi says UNICEF and the government are trying to
encourage members of these mixed-sex peer groups at schools to support each
other. This would help to reduce teen pregnancy.
"Children are
not shy and not scared," says Njagi, who says that often students can talk and
raise awareness about issues, including underage pregnancy, that adults shy away
from.
"The focus is to empower girls ... at the end of the
day, it's up to them," said Njagi. "They should be making informed decisions, so
they can chart their own destiny."