Poor women, eh. Our life-bearing bodies, especially when young and
nubile, are always the battlefield of the morality wars. Just to get the
obvious out of the way: I’m siding with the young mothers here. PHOTO
FILE | NATION
Following the remarks that President Magufuli made about
pregnant students and their educational fate as he sees it, many of us
realised that we’re in the middle of a real clash of ideas about how to
get life right.
Poor women, eh. Our life-bearing
bodies, especially when young and nubile, are always the battlefield of
the morality wars. Just to get the obvious out of the way: I’m siding
with the young mothers here.
Where is the logic in
ensuring that those who will need life skills immediately should be
denied access to them? Pregnant students who bear to term get to be
mothers, single more often than not.
They need all the
knowledge they can muster to help them take care of their children.
Even something as simple as making sure that young’uns are given proper
dosages of medication can depend on a mother’s confidence in her
numeracy.
Then there’s the economic aspect. Education
tends to lead to more income, more income means better nutrition, better
clothing, better chances for your child’s education and possible future
success in life.
Being born to a teenage mother in a
developing sub-Saharan African country like Tanzania whose GDP keeps
trying to lick the sticky floor of global poverty is challenge enough,
why make things worse for all involved?
There are those, like my president and my former first lady, who
would like us to believe that moral failings are the reason for student
pregnancies.
Sure, but whose moral failing exactly?
When it comes to the public education system, there is one glaring
omission: We don’t have comprehensive sex education (which includes
talking about your legal rights and protections as a minor) nor do we
provide access to basic sexual health services.
I would
argue that this makes the state complicit, guilty if you will, in the
matter of young female students having unplanned pregnancies. Yes, Mr
President: You are in fact part of the problem of why young students are
vulnerable to early pregnancies, and what you are trying to do about it
is the wrong thing.
The best protection against unwanted anything has always been knowledge and access to support.
This
is not rocket science, there is plenty of evidence from around the
world on how to tackle the issue and expelling pregnant teenagers is not
one of them.
If I had a suspicious nature, I would
consider this attack on young female students as a piece of evidence
that my government is now in the grip of a most corrosive form of
conservatism – actively hating on women and social progressiveness.
I
haven’t been ignorant of the frequency with which faith and the name of
God are being raised in matters public, whether it be the opening of
meetings or general remarks made by public figures.
While
I commend and admire people of strong faith, in the hope it actually
translates into personal rectitude, let us take a moment to remember
that Tanzania is a secular republic.
There is a reason
why we separate church and state and we have to find a way to handle
moral issues with an eye to serving all citizens, not punishing the
vulnerable... an act of secular love that is surely not outside the
reach of leadership that places value on morals.
While
the backlash against Magufuli’s pronouncements has been gratifying,
once the dust settles down I hope we continue to be defiant. I hope that
educators in the public system go rogue on this one – invite health
workers from time to time perhaps to talk to teenagers about sex.
Quietly
reintegrate young mothers into the school system, guerrilla-style if
you can. I hope parents take up the slack and do that one thing African
parents hate the most: Talk to your children. You’d be surprised how
smart and decisive well-informed youth can be.
Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report, http://mikochenireport.blogspot.com. E-mail: elsieeyakuze@gmail.com
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