Education has the potential to be a great enabler for girls, as it empowers by providing them with the tools to escape the cycle of illiteracy, pregnancy and poverty. Educating girls acts as a protective influence against abuse, early marriage and motherhood, with benefits filtering down to future generations (Delprato et al., 2017). Conversely, the denial of education robs women and girls of their ability to build social capital and perpetuates their vulnerability and dependency on men. The value of schooling was not lost on the young girls interviewed in Freetown, who regardless of age, prioritized the right to education as a means to obtain what they regarded as good jobs, to become role models for others, and enjoy a decent quality of life, away from the hardships associated with the slums. Listening to the testimonies of adults and children alike, it was often shocking to hear the candid manner in which they discussed the options facing girls: to stay on at school or to choose - or be pushed into - exploitative relationships, transactional sex or early marriage, from where their prospects of escaping the slums were greatly diminished.
If girls are at schooling, I think the effect of poverty will be lessened but if they are not schooling, it will be a big disaster, because it gives a child some protection because if you do not have good food and good clothes to put on, at night people go out and sell their bodies for money. (Community lead Rokupa, 2012).
Many a times, girls are forced to go into an unhealthy relationship when they are in school, either by their peers or by those who are in control of them. So, these are one of the linkages here, and also, we notice that girls in school, you can have the same amount of number of
boys and girls in primary school. By the time they are going to junior secondary school, the number will be less, you understand. (National Coordinator, Youth Advocacy NGO, 2012).
The girls´ emphasis on the value of schooling was echoed by community members and professional informants to the research, who commented that a lack of drive or desire to stay on in school among girls was rarely a contributing factor to their disengagement from education.
They have some admirable attributes, because they are good, these girls. And among them all the girls are doing very well, so they value their education, yes. We have a committee now, a school management committee, it’s through this we are now able to educate the parents of these girls to value the school, to value their education. (School principal, 2012).
The girls, they don't have a problem - the whole opposite, most of the opposition is from the parents. They are pushing for them to get married from the time they get pregnant; they force them into relationships. So, the main thing about poverty is, they want money. (Country lead,
education NGO, 2012).
For a kid who does not have a generator at home when the lights go out at night, who cannot pay the fees unless she's given some support…that’s where the gaps exist. But people are struggling, it’s not just because of lack of ability but many people just cannot afford it, that’s why they drop out. There are not enough scholarships for our children out here, not
especially for girls. So, they end up having to turn to an ‘uncle’, out here they call them their sugar daddies, a boyfriend or somebody. (National coordinator, Women’s education NGO,
The anecdotal evidence provided by the research participants emphasised how the hostile environment of the slums – the hand-to-mouth nature of living; the scarcity of basic sanitary facilities; low expectations of girls; the importance placed on the traditional role of women as housekeepers, wives and mothers; the burden of domestic work; pregnancy; the need to support their families, through street trading, transactional sex, and prostitution – competed with the girls´ desire to stay on and complete their schooling. The research informants agreed that the decision to remain in or to drop out of school was normally heavily influenced, if not completely taken, by a girls’ parents. Where parents did wish to support their girls in
remaining at school, they found it difficult if they lacked the money for school fees, uniforms and other expenses. One participant described seeing parents ‘begging’ for money during the summer months, in order to afford the fees for their children’s schooling come September. The gender gap is borne out in the official statistics, which demonstrate how a greater number of girls are failing to complete their secondary education, compared to their male counterparts33.
What has happened over time is that at the primary stage, there will be more girls in classes than the boys, but as they go along, the girls tend to reduce and the boys dramatically increase…well the problem is that teenage pregnancy has been one of the most contributing factors to that. In the schools, by the time they get to junior secondary school level, a lot of the girls will get pregnant before they can complete. (NGO project manager, 2012).
We notice that girls in school, you can have the same amount of boys and girls in primary school. By the time they are going to junior secondary school, the number will be less, you
33 Although trends towards gender equity at secondary school are improving, girls are “disadvantaged in
comparison to boys” at senior secondary school level (SSS). In 2016, there were 91,675 boys enrolled in SSS compared to 79,749 girls (Government of Sierra Leone, 2015: 18-19)
understand. One, they have to go for their Bondo society, which is the girls’ initiation and because of that they missed some classes and they have to fail and repeat. Some girls agree to repeat but some girls because of that now tend to stop schooling. (National coordinator,
youth advocacy NGO, 2012).
Poverty was cited as one of the main reasons for early disengagement from education (for girls and boys alike) by all informants, but was particularly stressed by the community representatives in Bonga Town and Rokupa. These community leads described the difficulty of prioritising schooling, and its associated expenses, in settings where people lack the essentials such as food, clean water, adequate shelter and basic sanitation (Robinson, 2015).
A number of things for your attention. Number one, lack of education that is in the
community. Two, we need for a hospital, that is what we lack as a community, we need the hospitals, we need schools, toilet facilities, all them things we need we have a lack of in the community. (Community lead, Bonga Town area, 2012).
As mentioned in the previous section, both the Girl Power and community group participants stressed the need for secondary schools close to their area, or at least adequate public
transport, as girls are at real risk of harassment and assault on their way to school.
They are saying that they need a school bus, because when they are walking to school there these big men with their motorbikes, they come and they stop them and try to sleep with them, so it is very important for them to have this bus. (Community member, Bonga Town, 2012).
So, people have to leave here if they go to school. If you have to leave the area to go to school, the possibility is that she could be attacked, raped, sexually assaulted, whatever. Do you understand me? So those are the issues. (Country director, girls’ education NGO, 2012).
Informants remarked that deterrents to remaining in education could also be found within the school environment, where sexual and gender-based violence was regarded as a serious problem. As evidenced in other studies of child sexual exploitation, school, particularly at secondary level, is far from a safe space for girls as they face harassment, intimidation and abuse from their peers and adult males, including their teachers (O´Reilly, 2014). Informants made the link between these forms of school-based violence and girls´ disengagement from education, either due to intimidation or violence, or because they have become pregnant.
There, the teacher is approaching girls, his students, it is not a good school. (Girl Power
participant, 2012).
(Speaking through interpreter) She says the girls will not go to school because they are being
intimidated by the teachers and if they get pregnant, they stop going. (Girl Power participant,
2012).
There is an issue about violence in the schools, violence in the communities…and young people are no exception to these things… We have been seeing many, many cases of people who are supposed to take care of these girls, they rape girls and nothing comes out of it. And these cases are either left unchecked or the justice is not being given at the time (National
Case Study: Mariama’s story, aged 16 years
Mariama is a bright and promising girl in school. However, she was born in a family where marriage is more important than education for a girl child. Mariama had this to say: “I don’t really understand my father. He always sends his daughters to school, spend money to pay their fees but would not allow them finish school. My four elder sisters were all removed from school at different times and forced into marriages. This is the same thing that my father wants to do to me. I thought he had changed this habit since this is the twenty first century”. She further narrated that one day when she came from school, there was [a] meeting going on at home between her father, brothers and another visiting family. Little did she know that they were there to seek her hand in marriage. Following some few days, her father confronted her and asked her to stop going to school and get prepared to start a new life. When she asked what her father meant, he told her that she will be getting married in a month’s time. She ran to her mother crying and begged her mother to talk to her father not to do this to her. Her mother just replied was that this was not new and she should make up her mind to accept it otherwise her father would disown her. She asked her teachers and other neighbours to talk to her father but he refused to change his mind. The girl then ran to DCI-SL’s Socio-Legal Defence centre for help. DCI-SL teamed up with the FSU/Police to stop the marriage. The father and mother of the girl were given strong warning letter by the FSU/Police and DCI-SL’s lawyer. The marriage did not go ahead and the girl continues to go to school. She is now part of the Defence for Girls Group in
Adonkia, Sierra Leone. (Case study provided by DCI-Sierra Leone, 2015).
With pressure to disengage coming both from within and outside school settings, it is hardly surprising that such a small proportion of teenage girls complete their education. The
cumulative impact of these pressures is having a devastating impact, and not just on girls lives. Denial of the right to education represents merely one aspect of a complex picture of poverty and exploitation, issues that bring harmful, long-term consequences, for teenage girls, and their families and communities.