Time to rethink some policies

6/25/13 and 6/26/13

            During these past few days, I have continued the approach used in the last blog posts in the schools. I have spent the past two mornings at two of the four senior secondary schools surrounding the community and have talked about health, sex, contraceptives, and views of the community – only after all of the adults have left the room. Our interactions have shown that many of the students know much more factual information about sex, pregnancy, and contraceptives than we initially were led to believe. This is especially true with a few of the students we have met that have been educated by the local Naguru Teenage Health Centre. This is especially true with awareness and knowledge about pregnancy and contraceptives. Essentially, there’s very little difference in what many of the secondary school students know compared to a typical U.S. high school student.

            However, we have also found something very surprising. As a matter of fact, we are lucky to have even discovered it as it was brought up through a passing question. While at Central College Secondary School, a student asked, “In the U.S. do they also drop you from school if you are pregnant?” Confused, I asked the student to elaborate. She went on to explain that females at the school are expelled if they become pregnant, and over 30% of girls in the school are affected by this. Holy shit.    

           After further investigation, we found out that nationally about 10% of women are expelled from school for this very same reason. “It is done in order to make an example of what happens to the students who become pregnant,” said one of the elders. I was extremely confused. The policy attempts to reprimand early sexual behavior and promote the success of students. How is this so? (1) Women biologically cannot inseminate themselves, so how do they justify only one party being affected? (2) How do they promote the success of students with the policy? They are eliminating the chance to pursue higher education at a very pivotal time. There is a baby about to come into the world, and an added mouth to feed when this woman is at a young age. She could really use that shot at increased income through her education…even worse, once expelled from school it’s virtually impossible to receive enrollment elsewhere. I can’t imagine the effect this policy has on students, especially to a community that values education so highly.

            On a different note, we have continued our conversations with various homes in the different communities within the area. Our findings have supported the community’s reliance on low income since the last blog post. Based on our conversations with the 14 households from 3 different communities that we have asked about income, we have found the average daily income for the families to be $3.37 per day. Amongst these homes, the wealthiest gained $8 per day and the poorest gained $0.06 per day. With this limited income, it is also a common theme that the families pay for school fees and education first. Many times, we weren’t even told it was an expense priority since it is expected that these fees be covered before any other expenses.

            Something interesting we have learned from the past few days has been a community-wide support for contraceptives. In a quarter of the homes we have visited, the wife has or is currently using the injection method of birth control (lasts 3 months). Because of the community wide support and popular use, it’s expected that we also found wide distribution of the injection method, branded “Injectaplan.”  What’s shocking is that this injection can be bought in one of the 6 local drug shops, and can even be self-delivered. We will continue to research the availability of these drugs and the manner in which they are regulated, if any.