Don't Pregnant Teens Also Deserve Education?

The destiny of every nation, village and community lies in the hands of its people and is closely linked to their intellectual development. All the nations, villages and communities we admire, hail or despise today are only a fruit of its people’s concern or complacency to partake in their nation, village and community development efforts.

Education and especially that of the girl child is one of these development efforts from which people in rural and urban communities in Cameroon are being excluded. Consciously or unconsciously, an ever increasing number of young girls are, because of pregnancy, being refused their rights of belonging to a community, their right to education is continuously abused, and they are restrained from taking part in community developmental activities.

A Policy Based on Stigma and Rumor

In Cameroon, the dismissal of a girl that is pregnant is inscribed in the internal rules and regulations of almost all schools (primary and secondary). Based on these internal rules which have no legal backing, pregnant teenage girls are dismissed daily from these schools on grounds that, they will serve as bad examples to the other girls in the school, and soil the reputation of the educational establishment.

Waves of shock and anger ran through my family last month when Regine, an 18 year old extended family member, was dismissed from school on grounds that she was pregnant. Dismissed from school in Lower sixth (last but one year in secondary, Regina was no doubt luckier than the 57% of pupils in Cameroon who do not survive to the last grade of primary school; a majority of them being girls (UNICEF).But she is also undisputedly very unlucky in that, prospects of her completing secondary school have been greatly compromised by her purported pregnancy and above all her dismissal from school. Did you get it right? I said purported pregnancy because it has turned out that Regine is not pregnant. Yet she will not be readmitted into her school or any other in the village.

Regina’s case is just one in a thousand of such cases whereby, based on rumor and hearsay, the future of girls in Cameroon is sacrificed on the Alter of morality and Puritanism.

Dismissing Pregnant Girls Robs Them of Their Education Forever

According to statistics from the German Cooperation Agency (GTZ) in Cameroon, 20 -30% of young mothers had unplanned pregnancies with more than half of these girls becoming pregnant after their first sexual encounter, and 25% of them dropping out of school permanently. This, coupled with my observation that a majority of girls dismissed from schools on grounds of pregnancy, rarely ever go back to school, poses a problem of the effectiveness of sex education in the Cameroonian educational system and the raison-d’être of practices like these which makes the school not the safe haven it is meant to be but an environment where exclusion, intolerance, hypocrisy, and terror reigns supreme.

While I agree that teenage pregnancy has to be discouraged, I fiercely oppose the approach to achieving this goal which consists of dismissing pregnant teenagers and advocate for an approach that ‘Manages’ rather than ‘punishes’ teenage pregnancy.

Educating on SRHR: A Shared Responsibility

An efficient management of teenage pregnancy is only possible through the education and sensitization of young boys and girls on their Sex and Reproductive Health Rights(SRHR).In my opinion, this approach is even more inclusive and just when the responsibility of educating children on their Sex and Reproductive Health Rights(SRHR) is shared by all the stakeholders in various communities.

There exist a host of cultural and religious taboos in most rural communities in Cameroon, makes sex education to a considerable proportion of people living in these communities a source of moral decay and a means of making children indulge into sex early. Viewed with a bad eye by most traditional and religious authorities, the restriction of lessons on sex education to basics is the order of the day in Cameroon.

A study carried out by the Germano-Cameroonian Health Program (SRJA), reveals that 62 % of girls who admitted having had an abortion had given birth before the age of 19, and 10% before the age of 16.A majority of these girls did not do any pre-natal medical consultations with 26% of them girls having contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the previous year. Frightening, no doubt, are the above facts and figures are, even more frightening is the number of girls who die while having an abortion in the towns and villages of Cameroon. How many of these poor outcomes could good sex education and contraceptive access have prevented?

Dismissal: Not a Solution; the Source of More Troubles

To reduce the horror caused by unsafe abortions in Cameroon, Sex and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) should be given the place it deserves in the school curricula. The way sex education is currently being done in schools across the country is very shallow with pupils and students limited on to the concepts around sex while they are not taught their Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights.

In addition to the above, the exclusion of teenage mothers from society through dismissal from school and isolation is a problem rather than a solution. Rather than constantly telling pregnant teenagers that they are a disgrace to their family, their church, or community, they should instead be shown that they can a play a fundamental role in the development of their communities.

The impact of the stigmatization of teenage mothers and the dismissal of pregnant teenagers from schools thus goes beyond just negatively affecting their ability to exercise their right to education, but is having a huge impact on the sexual and reproductive health rights of girls in rural communities in Cameroon. Action that is inclusive is needed if development efforts of each and everyone are to be counted. Because in my opinion, the dismissal of pregnant teenagers rather than being a solution has been the source of many more troubles for communities in my country.

Summer Holidays: A Thriving Season for Child Trafficking and Rape in Cameroon

According to the International Labour Organisation, more than 600 000 children (Most of whom are girls) were victims of child trafficking in 2005.Most of these victims are girls who do not go to school or are school dropouts. Horizon Jeunesse (Youth Horizon), an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) based in Yaoundé (Cameroon’s capital city) claims that, about three million the Cameroonian children are working or being trafficked in conditions of near slavery (http://ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=34063).These children are often taken away from their parents by their relatives who promise to provide the children education and training but once in town these children are forced to prostitute, hawk and in most cases end up as street children.

Child trafficking in Cameroon is most rampant in its rural areas. Child trafficking like forced/premature marriages, child labour, massive rural exodus, high rate of school drop outs, drastic drop in agricultural productivity, high vulnerability to diseases due to poor sanitation and housing conditions and a high child mortality rate are results of the neglect and abandonment of rural areas by policy makers and are a consequence of the inadequacy of  current policies for the fight against poverty, disease, and illiteracy in rural areas-when these even exist .This explains why parents of victims and the victims themselves are ready to pay any price to see greener pastures which they have been promised by human traffickers.

Summer holidays constitute the peak period for child trafficking in Cameroon. The month of May marks the end of the academic year in Cameroon and therefore the massive exodus of pupils and students from rural to urban areas in search of greener pastures. I am then not surprised that movement into major urban centers in Cameroon has scaled up in recent weeks.

In fact, I have noticed that, as years go by, the number of children leaving their villages to ‘work their school fees’, as this is referred to in Cameroon, is ever increasing while the average age of these children, who while on holiday, hawk, peddle, and carry out all sorts of activities that will enable them go back home with something with which to pay their school fees and buy their school needs, has sensibly reduced.

While I understand that agriculture is the main means of subsistence for a majority of people living in rural communities of Cameroon, and that the fact that agriculture is in crisis, has greatly contributed in making them more powerless and vulnerable to disease, and climate change, I am also completely opposed to the practice of using children as a source of revenue for the family. I am wounded in my soul whenever I find a child who carries a load which out weights him/her just because they are selling one thing or the other so that his/her family can survive.

Also, the fact that Sexual abuse and rape are on the rise during summer holidays in Cameroon is an  indicator that with the desire to make their ends and those of their families meet comes exposure of these tender souls  to horrible acts such as rape and other forms of sexual assaults. In fact it is no longer news in Cameroon when information that a rapist who, with the pretext of buying 2 pieces of Chewing Gum (costing less than 5 cents),lure these children to isolated areas or into their homes and sexually assault them.

Acts like those described above are not only  criminal but destructive and wicked because of the trauma and long lasting negative effects they have on the reputation, self –esteem  and on   the sexual and reproductive health of the victims. While these despicable acts call for the toughest and harshest action against its perpetrators, prevention remains a better cure. Enough is enough! I am tired of seeing the future of the children of Cameroon given to rapists on a platter of Gold. Let’s be responsible enough to stop sacrificing the happiness of these children on an Alter of the ‘fight for survival’.

 The government, parents, and all those involved in child trafficking should not ignore the heavy psychological and health burden that the enslavement of their children represents. Children are the future of our world and merit to be treated better. No degree of poverty, pain, and suffering should ever justify their enslavement.  Vigilance of the government and civil society organisations has to be heightened at this moment for this summer holidays to be free of human trafficking and forced child labour. An abused child is not only simply abused; he/she is denied the right to happiness and is robbed of all dignity.