Eliza Chikoti, 24, is a mentor to high school girls in Malawi. She is helping girls through their personal problems amid the pandemic — and encouraging them to stay in school.Eliza Chikoti, 24, is a mentor to high school girls in Malawi. She is helping girls through their personal problems amid the pandemic — and encouraging them to stay in school.
Chikoti says the girl told her,"If I can go into marriage, if they can find a husband who can marry me, maybe he can be able to support me."small southern African country, one of the poorest in the world. Girls are desperate to help their families survive the tough times — and more likely than boys to turn to child marriage as a way to ease economic strains.
Getting girls inside a classroom has been a top priority for Malawi over the past few decades. The country has made great strides, nearly doubling the number of girls in high school from 95,000 in 2006 to 185,934 in 2018. Current data show about the same number of girls and boys in high school.There's special concern about girls preparing for high school and college, says Foster Mkandawire, program manager for education for.
There's another set of girls the educators worry about — those at risk of never returning to school again.marry before 18. And once they wed, many of these girls drop out of school."From the information we are receiving from our field offices, about 50 girls are either married or some of them are pregnant [since the start of the pandemic]," says Mkandawire."This is very unusual" compared with a similar period of months, he adds.
Even before the pandemic, nonprofit organizations have helped provide mentors to girl students in Malawi. Plan International, for example, has 240 members in mother groups assisting 23,372 girls in both primary and secondary school."The mother groups are conducting door-to-door sessions to ensure that girls are not tempted to get married while schools are in closure," says Mkandawire.
Chikoti knew that if the girl were to marry, she'd likely get pregnant, have kids. Returning to school would just be too difficult.
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The idea that people need education is a western supremacist idea
This is indeed incredibly sad. I couldn't bring myself to read the whole article. These girls man. How is child marriage ethical when we know it's not
So sad !
How about end child marriage? Kind of saves them from that choice