The unfortunate incident of truncating the girl child’s education when she gets pregnant has become a dominant canker in Africa today. These female teenagers who may have ended up pregnant for varied reasons, including ignorance and even sexual violence resulting from the Ebola outbreak, have to bear the consequence of being forced out of school.
This menace has been at its apex in African countries like Sierra Leone, where they have completely banned such girls from accessing education. The restriction, that curtails these girls their right to education is what Amnesty International Ghana describes as an infringement on their right to education. For this reason, they have taken on an advocacy campaign to help lift the ban.
Moreover, it has even become more imperative because prior to this, an ECOWAS court passed a ruling that Sierra Leone’s ban imposed on visibly pregnant girls from attending school and sitting exams is discriminatory. The ruling which took place last month also saw the court order that the policy is revoked with immediate effect.
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More so because the ban was imposed in 2015, during the Ebola crisis where a number of girls became pregnant due to sexual violence.
However, the decision to revoke the ban is a resounding victory for girls’ rights in Sierra Leone and the continent at large.
Meanwhile, the campaign officially began on the international women day, thus on 8th March. Both the print and electronic media were employed to help spread the word.
Some of the placards used had these inscriptions.
To help heighten the campaign, Amnesty International Ghana expects all it’s members to do this, in the wake of this advocacy.
Amnesty International calls on its members/supporters/followers worldwide to join its social media actions from today till March 15th, 2020.
The action is intended to demand that the ban on pregnant girls in Sierra Leone is revoked.
Please put the following on your social media handles (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc) with the hashtag #Revoketheban.Please note that Amnesty Ghana has a tweet on the actions and we are encouraged to retweet at 12 pm today so we can achieve a greater impact together. Thank you
