A new controversial policy aims to prevent pregnant girls in Uganda from becoming school dropouts
To keep them in school, Uganda has announced it will allow pregnant girls to take at least one year of maternity leave. This is according to the education ministry’s revised guidelines on school retention and re-entry.
The recent Uganda Demographic Health Survey revealed that in Uganda, 1 in 4 women age 15 to 19 are already mothers or pregnant with their first child. Furthermore, pregnancy has been blamed for 25% of school dropout in Uganda, according to the gender technical advisor in the Ministry of Education, Angela Nakafeero.
“Our suggestion is that girls should be given maternity leave from the sixth month of pregnancy to go and prepare for childbirth. After one year, she can go back to school and continue with her studies,” Nakafeero said.
“Pregnancy can take a toll on an individual. We are saying that if a girl constantly feels unwell, let her go back home until such a time when she feels she is able to return. Some girls face stigma from the community as soon as the bump begins showing. If she is able to carry on until the eighth month, well and good,” Nakafeero told New Vision in an exclusive interview, just after a meeting on menstrual hygiene management and sexual reproductive health rights in schools in Kampala.
The controversial policy has sparked debate and those opposed to it slammed the government for rewarding girls that engage in premarital sex and is a disrespect to their counterparts.
Nakafeero responded: “Why condemn a victim and ignore the perpetrator? None of these girls intends to get pregnant. Some are coerced into sex by men who initially pretended to give them care or the things they need. Others have been defiled by their own teachers and family members- the very people who are supposed to protect them.”
Hope Nankunda, the Central Region Coordinator of Girls Not Brides says many teenage pregnancies have resulted into child marriages.
“Parents force the girl to get married to the man responsible for eh pregnancy but the girl is still young to deal with the challenges that come with marriage,” says Nankunda, who is also a team leader at Raising Teenagers Uganda.