The World Bank is set to approve a $500 million educational loan to Tanzania’s government, to improve the quality of education in the Southern African country. The fund includes provision for alternative programs as opposed to regular education for pregnant teens, adolescent mothers and school dropouts. However, different activists have discouraged the financial institution due to the education ban on pregnant schoolgirls and teenage mothers in the country.
According to CNN, advocates in Tanzania have written petitions to the World Bank against the loan, demanding that the organization should not grant the funds until the government addresses the segregation of pregnant schoolgirls constitutionally. They believe the current law promotes stigmatization and gender inequality.
In 2002, the Tanzanian government passed a bill in favour of expelling pregnant schoolgirls, the law has been widely enforced since President John Pombe Magufuli started his tenure in 2015. During a public rally in 2017, Magufuli said, “In my administration as the President, no pregnant girl will go back to school. She has chosen that kind of life, let her take care of the child.’’
The law seems rather biased, as there are situations where school girls are impregnated by fellow male students, who are not forced to quit their education. This creates an argument of double standards and social imbalance. A report titled rape against women in Tanzania discovered that the majority of rape cases against females occur during childhood or adolescence. It also revealed that they are vulnerable to sexual manipulations by older men.
Also, the United Nation Sustainable Development Goal 10 stipulates targets that can be linked to this issue and if addressed, will go a long way to ensure an all-inclusive society, advancing at an equal pace. The goal seeks to ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequality, including eliminating discriminatory laws, policies, and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action.
This particular target addresses this issue of having separate schools for pregnant and nonpregnant girls. The government’s line of argument and claims are valid but a critical look at the effects of going by the government’s decision will eventually brew division, inequality and stigmatization amongst the students and within the state. Hence it is important that both opposing sides are weighed to understand the implication of taking either of the decisions and go with the decision that has better outcomes.
The opposition leader Zitto Kabwe believes the separation of the pregnant girls is unreasonable. He also emphasized that the new loan will further create a stigma for them. To follow up on his argument he wrote a petition urging the World Bank to use their influence in discouraging the government, “until basic checks and balances are restored in Tanzania.’’
“The way the loan is been structured [means] the young girls who get pregnant for whatever reason will be put in separate schools,” he told CNN. “This is not right. I am wondering how can the World Bank allow this.” Zitto said.
According to Tanzanian government data, the number of pregnancies in teenagers aged 15 to 19 is increasing. It increased from 23 percent in 2010 to 27 percent in 2015. Furthermore, child marriage which was barred in 2016, remains an issue, 36 percent of women aged 25 to 49 were married before they turned 18, according to official data from 2016, the latest available.
In the same vein, Elin Martínez, a senior researcher at the Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, expressed her disappointment at the World Bank for considering the loan. She said the government does not merit the funds because of its non-compliance to the terms and conditions of the loan.
“The government has not fulfilled the promises and the conditions that were set last year,” she said. “We thought that the World Bank was not going to proceed with that loan until the government adopted a policy where it actually explicitly said ‘we will end the discrimination against girls.’ That has not happened. [The government] will not remove the discriminatory ban, that’s quite clear now.”
Perhaps the Tanzanian government can look into the sensitization programs that encourage protected sex, birth control and family planning. Furthermore, young girls should be enlightened on the disadvantages of teenage pregnancy and open sexual conversations amongst parents, guardians, teachers, and students should be encouraged. The laws seem like an extreme measure that lacks compassion for naive teenagers.
