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In
2010, Sierra Leone banned visibly pregnant girls from attending school. Schools
were shut down for nine months during the Ebola outbreak, but reopened again on
April 14, 2015, with the ban still in place. Image source: brogenproject.org
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Beaten at home by her
parents and unable to go to school due to the Ebola outbreak which devastated
Sierra Leone, 15-year-old Rugiatu Conteh had nowhere to go, and no one she
could turn to.
Thomson
Reuters Foundation report continues:
Until
she met Abdul, a charming man in his early twenties.
"He
was kind and helped me to get by, at first," she said.
"But
he changed when he learned I'd got belly (become pregnant). Then he
disappeared," Conteh, now 17, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in the
northern district of Kambia.
Struggling
to survive without Abdul, or her parents who had died of Ebola, the pregnant
teenager took solace in resuming her education when schools reopened in April
last year, after nine months of closure in an effort to curb the spread of the
virus.
But
her sense of hope was short-lived. Along with thousands of other expectant
girls, Conteh was banned from going to school by the government when classes
resumed. Many girls missed entrance exams for universities and colleges as a
result.
The
education ministry said last year allowing the girls to go to school would
undermine their ability to do well in class, expose them to ridicule and
encourage others to become pregnant.
"We
are angry about the ban - it wasn't our fault we had so many problems during
Ebola," said Salamatu Bangura, 17, who gave birth to a boy last year. She
had slept with an older boy who paid for school supplies and books her family
could not afford.
The
government and United Nations last year launched alternative classes for
pregnant students, which will continue to cater for those who fall foul of the
ban as Sierra Leone starts its first full academic year since the Ebola
outbreak.
Yet
countless girls will suffer stigma and discrimination unless the ban is lifted
in the West African nation where only six in 10 girls aged 15 to 24 are
literate, compared with three-quarters of boys in that age range, human rights
activists say.
"Pregnant
girls are being denied key chances to move forward with their lives, and to
ensure early pregnancy does not become the event that determines the rest of
their lives," said Sabrina Mahtani, a researcher at Amnesty International.
"NOTHING IS FOR
NOTHING"
Even
before Ebola broke out in late 2013, Sierra Leone had one of the highest
teenage pregnancy rates in the world. One in four girls between the ages of 15
and 19 had children or were pregnant, figures from the 2013 government health
survey show.
Rape,
abusive relationships, and sex in exchange for money were rife in Sierra Leone
during the Ebola outbreak, fuelling a spike in teenage pregnancies, several aid
agencies said.
Some
18,000 teenage girls became pregnant during the world's worst recorded Ebola
outbreak, which killed nearly 4,000 people in Sierra Leone, according to the
U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).
"Poverty
and sexual violence fuelled teenage pregnancies, but too many people see it
from another perspective," said Wongani Grace Taulo of the U.N's
children's agency (UNICEF).
"They
say the girls are going out, looking, begging for sex. It is so frustrating
that these girls are seen as in the wrong."
Leaning
against the wall outside a crowded classroom, with three or four pupils huddled
around each desk, Ishata Kaagbo laid the blame for her pregnancy on men from
local biker gangs.
"One
of the boys would drive me around, give me money for lunch, and look after
me," the 15-year-old mother said, who has just returned to school with her
classmates Conteh and Bangura.
At
the nearby Rokupr Bike Riders Association, dozens of young men, shouting to be
heard, traded insults and teased those who had not been "potent
enough" to impregnate a local girl.
"A
lot of girls don't get enough support from their parents, so we help them, and
they do something confidential for us in return," said 18-year-old Bai
Turai. "Nothing is for nothing."
Amid
the back-and-forth banter, some of the men said they felt forced to abandon the
girls when they became pregnant, as they could not afford to look after them
and were afraid of being attacked or taken to the police by the girl's relatives.
BACK TO SCHOOL
Pregnant
girls and young mothers in Sierra Leone have traditionally been discouraged
from going to school, said Yusuf Kamara, a state representative and head of
education for Kambia.
"Girls
are not meant to expose their pregnancy," Kamara said. "The
government's ban is the will of the people."
Yet
across lush and leafy Kambia, a mainly Muslim state along Sierra Leone's border
with Guinea, many teachers and parents firmly disagree.
"We
want our girls to go to school - to have better lives than us," said
62-year-old Soria Bangura, a father of three.
Teacher
Alpha Kamara said he and his colleagues "swept the ban under the
carpet" by allowing their pregnant students to finish their exams, and
giving them tutoring outside of school.
"We
couldn't leave so many young people behind," he said.
After
the ban, many girls said they were mocked and shunned by their peers, while
some were forced to undergo public pregnancy tests, such as having their breasts
and stomachs felt by teachers and giving urine samples, Amnesty said.
To
combat this, and ensure pregnant girls did not miss a year's schooling, organizations
like UNICEF set up after-hours sessions in schools and classes at separate
learning centres.
Giggling
and exchanging shy smiles, the girls, now back at school, recalled sharing tips
and stories about being pregnant. "Most of our babies' fathers ran
away," Bangura said. "At least we had each other - we were all going
through the same thing."
Some
of the girls were frustrated at being forced to repeat the year that they
completed in the alternative classes.
"The
government want to punish the girls by setting them back a year," Taulo of
UNICEF said. "Who knows when the state will stop making a moral example of
them and end the ban?"
But
nothing could trouble the grin on Conteh's face as she spoke about returning to
school, and her hopes for the future.
"I can't wait to go back to class," she said. "After all, I'm going to be Sierra Leone's first female president."
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