Sierra Leone: Civil society group alerts gov't on discriminatory education law for pregnant girls

09 Octobre 2017

Freetown, Sierra Leone, October 9 (Infosplusgabon) - Child-based civil society group, Defence for Children International (DCI), has called on the Sierra Leonean government to engage in a serious discussion on allowing pregnant girls to attend school.

“We need to have a serious discussion on allowing pregnant girls attend school,” Manaff Kemokai, the EXecutive Director of DCI.

In Sierra Leone, girls who are pregnant are barred from attending main stream schools. This decision came in to effect as a result of a Cabinet white paper that was passed in 2010.

However, over the years, the government has established alternative educational centers for these girls.

Deputy Director of Schools, Brima Micheal Turay, told Infosplusgabon that “ We have up to 300 of these centers across the country, where they could go and take classes.”

But DCI has said the establishment of a separate education system apart from the mainstream one is a violation of the educational laws of the country. Kemokai said “There is no law in our educational code that suggests that a separate school should be established for pregnant girls.”

In response to this, the education ministry said the education law allows the establishment of alternative educational set up if both systems provide the same level of education. But there have been complaints in the past about the effectiveness of these alternative educational set up.

This is not the first time civil society groups like DCI are challenging the government on this issue.

During the Ebola outbreak, thousands of pregnant girls were barred from writing public exams.

Global rights body, Amnesty International, is among the many bodies that have challenged the government on such a law.

The Ministry says the law was not designed to discriminate against pregnant girls, but rather to protect others who were not pregnant. “Allowing pregnant girls in school would go against every teenage pregnancy campaign that we have ever raised,” Turay said.

Through DFID funding, the Ministry of Education is currently rolling out a campaign for girls to return to schools. Turay said “Through the GATE ( Girls Access To Education), we have sent 5,000 girls across the country to school. These are girls who had to drop out of school because of pregnancy, and other reasons.”

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/ARE/GABON 2017

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