By Zakithi Sibandze
In most cases of the Swazi situation once the girl is pregnant she is chased out of home and is left with no option but to go and stay with the perpetrator who got her pregnant. Some formally get married while the majority cohabitate. SRWA in July launched a campaign themed: Ending Early Marriage and Teenage pregnancy-Keeping Girls at School. The campaign is aimed at educating children on Sexual Reproductive Health Rights and laws protecting girls from unjust acts performed on them.
So far the campaign has been able to go to two schools one being a high school in the Hhohho region and one in the Manzini region and is a primary school. On 9th July 2024 the campaign went to Timphisini High school and educated both girls and boys to allow everyone to support girls to continue with education even if they felt pregnant but also make it their responsibility to report such cases to law enforcement because they are illegal. There were 1282 children and 712 were females and 574 were males.
In an engagement with a form 3 teacher she uploaded the work done by Swaziland Rural Women’s Assembly and said teenage pregnancy is indeed a problem in the school and she said: “in form 3 alone we have cases of teenage pregnancies”. On the other hand we engaged the Deputy on the causes of teen pregnancy and child marriages he said: “This is caused by family fragmentation, the family is nowhere many children are single parents they get older boyfriends to support them”. He proceeded to say they have a case where a girl told her mother off when the mother reported that she’s dating a bus conductor the teenage girl said ” you are always drunk where do you expect me to get toiletries and bus fare”. This is proof that poverty remains an enemy for the development of children.
The second school was Mbikwakhe primary school on the 11th April 2024 where we targeted higher grades,5, 6 and 7. There were 282 students, 162 females and 120 males, worth noting in this school is that children learn a lot from television and are not supervised by their parents in watching what is within their age. The campaign will proceed to community dialogues with health practitioners, churches and law enforcement to have a discussion with parents on the topic.
