Human Rights Watch has exposed the Kenyan government’s denial of education to pregnant teens and young mothers. While the government has made major progress towards increasing access to education for all children, such as making primary and secondary school free in 2003 and 2008 respectively, their piecemeal approach leaves many students behind. Teenage girls like 17-year-old Harriett* face the reality that they will never return to school following childbirth.
This is in direct contravention of the government’s international legal obligation to provide all children with education under articles 28 and 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), irrespective of gender. As Elin Martinez, a children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, states, “the African Union needs to work closely with all its member countries to ensure that no girl is denied her right to an education because she becomes pregnant.”
KENYA’S PROGRESS TOWARDS EQUAL EDUCATION
In 1994, the government adopted a re-entry policy to enable young mothers to return to school following childbirth. Since then, the government has made headway to provide free education for all children, and schools saw a rise in enrolment rates to 84 percent.
Moreover, in 2017, President Uhuru Kenyatta signed the Basic Education Amendment Act, which requires the government to provide free sanitary towels to schoolgirls and allocates $4.6 million to the gender department ministry for the projects. This was instrumental in encouraging girls to attend school; previously, an estimated one in ten girls missed school due to their inability to access affordable sanitary products.
THE HIDDEN PROBLEM
Despite these efforts, the government is still far from achieving true gender equality for children, as many young mothers remain out of school because they are blockaded from returning.
One of the main reasons for this, as highlighted in the Human Rights Watch report, is that the government’s re-entry policy is conditional. The mother must initially leave school when she finds out about her pregnancy, and fulfill certain conditions to be able to return. Also, there is not enough transparent information from schools on the returning process. In the report, Harriet* described one of her obstacles as not “hav[ing] anyone to give [her] advice”.
Although education is free, families are expected to fund textbooks, uniforms, and teachers’ salaries. This is difficult when mothers are needed to contribute to the family’s income and particularly problematic for the majority of children who are living in poverty. These traditional gender roles mean that girls then cannot gain qualifications to find better jobs, which in turn continues the cycle of poverty. One extreme yet common scenario sees many young mothers kicked out and shunned by their families due to stigma around teenage pregnancies out of wedlock. The young mothers are then isolated with their newborn with no income to afford the upkeep of schooling.
BENEFITS OF EDUCATION FOR YOUNG WOMEN
And yet, the benefits of keeping young women in education are huge in the long run for the society. One year of secondary education for a girl in Kenya corresponds to over 25 percent increase in wages. Additionally, if girls were to finish their secondary education, child marriage would be reduced by at least 50 percent. Promoting girls’ education has been proven to be one of the most beneficial strategies with UNICEF highlighting some of the long term benefits, including enhancing economic development, education amongst the next generation, and fewer maternal deaths.
THE DOMESTIC RESPONSE
As Africa has one of the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy in the world, education focusing on preventing teenage pregnancies is crucial. Curriculum could include content on practising safe sex, the skills to speak up when something is not right, and to recognise the signs of an unhealthy relationship.
The government must guarantee young mothers’ right to education following childbirth. This could be enabled by a governmental commitment to ensure young mothers return to school in 2021 when schools are expected to reopen. In light of reports that there has been a 40-percent rise in teenage pregnancies in the first three months of school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this commitment is needed now more than ever. Despite this, Sonal Kadchha of charity Educating the Children explained that “the coronavirus crisis has completely wiped off all the progress we have made advancing girls education and gender equality,” highlighting the challenge of making this commitment a reality.
Finally, teachers and elders must be trained and informed about how to assist a child in returning to school. Information on the benefits of returning to education would also challenge those traditional gender roles in Kenya and encourage families to support the young mothers’ return to school.
*refers to fictional names of children interviewed for the report
Ploy is currently a paralegal in London. She has an LLB from Swansea University and an LLM LPC from BPP University in Cambridge. She is interested in promoting human rights injustices and bringing them into the public domain, with a particular focus on children due to their vulnerable status.