Adolescent mothers decry stereotyping

Malawi: Some adolescent mothers have said they would love to return to school after dropping out due to pregnancy, but many give up due to a lack of support.

Openly sharing their experiences at a stakeholder’s meeting for a study on parenting and pregnant adolescents in Blantyre on Monday, the adolescents disclosed that they are condemned for falling pregnant so much that when they express interest to return to school, they are ignored.

Deputy Minister of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare, Agnes Nkusankhoma has asked communities to stop bullying adolescent mothers and rather encourage them to return to school.

African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC) factsheet says research has shown that most adolescent mothers would like to return to school but lack the needed support to pursue their educational goals. Some countries in the Sub-Saharan region- such as Botswana, Zambia, Guinea, Malawi, South Africa and Kenya- have policies that ensure that pregnant girls are supported to continue with learning during pregnancy and to return to school after they have delivered.

It further notes that a vast majority of adolescent girls who get pregnant drop out of school, which results in widening gender inequalities in schooling and economic participation.

In a related development, APHRC in collaboration with the Centre for Social Research (Chancellor College, Zomba) launched PROMOTE project to implement a randomized controlled trial to estimate the incremental effect of interventions aimed at facilitating adolescent mothers’ (re)entry into school or vocation training.

Among other things, this project will provide cash transfers (to adolescent mothers) on condition of enrolment into school or vocational training, provision of subsidized child care and Life-skills training offered by community health workers that will cover nurturing childcare, SRH, and financial literacy classes.

The PROMOTE project started in 2021 and will run up until 2024.