By Roseleen Nzioka
Nairobi, Kenya: Adolescent girls in nearly one-third of African countries who are pregnant face significant legal and policy barriers to continuing their formal education, a comprehensive report by Human Rights Watch shows.
Most African governments, however, now protect education access through laws, policies, or measures for pregnant students or adolescent mothers.
A new Human Rights Watch interactive index and comprehensive compilation of laws and policies related to teenage pregnancy in schools across the African Union (AU) detail the laws and policies in place, as well as the shortcomings, to protect girls’ access to education.
Human rights compliant frameworks are necessary first steps to protecting girls’ access to education, Human Rights Watch said. Governments should invest in the implementation, monitoring, and enforcement of policies at the school level. Without such measures, tens of thousands of students across Africa will continue to be excluded.
“Many pregnant girls and adolescent mothers in Africa are still denied their basic right to education for reasons that have nothing to do with their desire and ability to learn,” said Adi Radhakrishnan, a Leonard H. Sandler fellow in the Children’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights Watch reviewed over 100 laws and policies relating to education, gender equity strategies, and sexual and reproductive health policies and plans across the AU.
Thirty-eight out of fifty-four African countries have laws, policies, or measures that protect adolescent girls’ education during pregnancy and motherhood. Some of these countries recently overturned negative policies.
At least 10 AU members have no laws or policies related to the retention of students who are pregnant or adolescent mothers in schools. Many also lack or have inadequate policies to prevent and manage adolescent pregnancies, undermining children’s right to sexual and reproductive rights, including the right to access reproductive health care and comprehensive sexuality education.
Many of these are countries in North Africa or the Horn of Africa with problematic laws and policies that make sexual behavior outside of marriage a criminal offense, which can interfere with girls’ right to education. Most countries in the region lack policies related to the management of teenage pregnancies and the treatment of pregnant students in schools.
Criminal penalties for consensual sexual relations between adults or between children of similar ages violate fundamental rights to privacy and nondiscrimination, but also do little to affirmatively protect education rights for affected students, Human Rights Watch found.
Pregnant students or adolescent mothers continue to experience discrimination and exclusion in the absence of additional policies that explicitly protect education access, and address social, financial, or academic barriers to continuing formal schooling.
The African Union, under its directorate of Education, Science, Technology, and Innovation should work with governments to move education systems toward full inclusion of girls in public schools, Human Rights Watch said.
The AU should encourage all its members to respect, protect, and fulfill adolescents’ rights to sexual and reproductive health. It should ensure that pregnant or parenting students are allowed to remain in school for as long as they choose, are able to continue their education free from complex or burdensome processes for withdrawal and re-entry, and have access to adequate financial and social support to complete their education.
“Although many African countries have adopted laws and policies that relate to girls’ education, many still lack the specific frameworks that allow for pregnant students and adolescent mothers to stay in school or continue their education free from discriminatory barriers,” Radhakrishnan said. “The African Union should provide clear guidance to governments and urge all its members to adopt human rights compliant policies that ensure students can continue their education during pregnancy and motherhood.”
The overwhelming majority of African Union (AU) countries have ratified the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (the African child rights treaty) and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol, or the African women’s rights treaty), obligating them to take special measures to ensure equal access to education for girls, raise the minimum age of marriage to 18, and take all appropriate measures to ensure that girls who become pregnant have the right to continue and complete their education.
Human Rights Watch has classified the range of existing state measures into five categories: “continuation” policies, “re-entry” policies, no policies that positively protect girls’ access to education, laws or practices that criminalize those who become pregnant outside of marriage, and school bans.
“Continuation” policies allow pregnant students to choose to remain in school without a mandatory absence at any point during pregnancy or after birth. They also give students the ability to stop studying temporarily for childbirth and associated physical and mental health needs, and the option to resume schooling after birth at a time that is right for them, free from intricate conditions for reinstatement.
“Re-entry” policies protect a girl’s right to return to school, but present additional barriers for the students. These include long and mandatory periods of maternity leave and complicated conditions or requirements for readmission, such as requiring students to transfer to a different school or presenting letters from various education and health officials.
A large number of countries still lack a positive policy framework. Pregnant girls and adolescent mothers may face the threat of criminal penalties, arbitrary school decisions, and social and community-level barriers in continuing education.
In 10 countries, the absence of positive protections exposes students to irregular access to education at the school level, where school officials can decide what happens to a girl’s education, or where discriminatory attitudes and social barriers pressure girls to drop out altogethe
