7 000 girls drop out of school due to pregnancy

MORE than 6 700 girls dropped out of school in the country last year after they fell pregnant or entered into unintended marriages, an official has said.

This came out during the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), workshop held in Mazowe last week.

Of these drop-outs, 367 were from primary schools while 6 419 were from secondary schools.

Unesco national project co-ordinator Mr Masimba Nyamucheta described the development as worrying.

“The problem of early pregnancies and early marriages is real in our society and this is very worrisome. According to the Ministry (Primary and Secondary Education) statistics, over 6 700 girls dropped out of school last year because of marriage and pregnancy related issues. By any reason and by any measure, this is quite a huge number, we are losing a lot of learners considering that these are cases that have been reported, what about those that have not been reported,” he said.

Mr Nyamucheta said some of the reasons behind the high numbers were poverty where a girl is forced to get married off as a means to eke out a living.

“Areas where artisanal mining was high, young girls are being impregnated by omakorokoza who have the financial muscle in these communities,” he said.

Mr Nyamucheta also said harmful traditional practices such as sacrificing the girl child in times of hunger and marrying a girl off to a family of means in exchange for food, were also a driver of the early marriages.

He called upon various groups in society to work together in eradicating child pregnancies and marriages.

“We therefore, urge all stakeholders to come together to reduce the prevalence of girls dropping out of school due to marriage and pregnancies. These are our children, it is therefore, our duty to make sure that we protect them by dealing with causes of early pregnancies,” he said.

He said education is the most important right for every child.

“When these girls drop out of school, it means their right to education is infringed upon as they cannot continue attending school while pregnant yet education is the most important right that should be a weapon of fighting inequality in society.”

The issue of early pregnancy has been widely debated in the country, and this year in June the Parliament mulled that girls who get pregnant while still at school should be given maternity leave.

Meanwhile, the media has been challenged to report more and effectively on early and unintended pregnancy in a bid to raise awareness on the dangers of the practice.

Speaking at the workshop, Mrs Tariro Chikumbirike a media personality said the media were a key stakeholder in the fight against early pregnancies.

“The media has a role to play in information dissemination. They must write stories that carry the correct message so that it reaches the parents, schoolchildren, stakeholders and even the masses so that they are not found wanting. The media has the ability to reach wide audiences so the message can be spread to all corners of the country,” she said.

e First Lady, Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa last week officially launched the National Let’s Talk Zimbabwe Campaign on early marriages at Makomo Primary School in Epworth where she called on parents to dedicate more time to their girl children and talk to them about issues affecting them rather than leave the job solely to the class teacher.

She noted that ethnicity, alcohol and drug abuse, religion, peer pressure, child marriages and poverty were some of the causes of early marriages.

The Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Professor Paul Mavima, who was also present at the launch, said the ministry was seized with the matter and was in the process of implementing intervention programmes to respond to the challenges being faced by the girl child.

He also said the new Education Act which is still in Parliament allows for the readmission of school girls who would have fallen pregnant into the system after giving birth so that they complete their studies.

The Let’s Talk campaign is being spearheaded by Unesco and was born out of an Eastern and Southern African commitment signed by Ministers of Health in the 21 countries of the region in reducing early child marriages.