Global Policy Forum

By Ofeibea Quist-Arcton

Girls in Africa still face an uphill battle to go to and stay in school, while some struggle to be taken seriously and others face sexual harassment by male teachers. That is the conclusion of Professor Penina Mlama, the executive director of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), herself a former Dean of Students at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. FAWE is based in Nairobi, Kenya, with branches in 33 sub-Saharan African countries.

Addressing a conference on secondary education in Africa, Mlama noted that what might appear on the surface to be the poor performance of girls at school, could be put down to a number of contributing factors.

Among these, she noted that schools often failed to create an environment conducive to learning, especially for girls. Society - including parents and teachers - said Mlama, must shed the mistaken impression that while boys were naturally good performers at school, girls lacked a competitive spirit and tended to lag behind.

"The best way is to focus on girls, both in the rural and urban areas, who perform well in their studies in order to sensitize communities to the potential that girls have," she said. Girls also must be encouraged to think they can beat their male counterparts and be among those at the top of a class. So, said Mlama, boys too must be taught to respect their female classmates. "The empowerment of boys is necessary in order to avoid intimidation and discouragement that could lead to possible early drop-out (by girls)".

Mlama also pointed to the risks girls face at school - even from their own male teachers - having to fend off unwanted sexual advances, which could affect both their performance and their grades. "That's a very, very serious problem indeed. And to tell you the truth, it's quite rampant. And it's getting worse with the deterioration of morals in the society, the loose morals of society in general that is reflected in the schools". Mlama said sexual harassment and abuse in school were a difficult problem to deal with, "because the evidence is not out in public and because these things are done in private". Pre-pubescent schoolgirls, and girl pupils in their early teens, have to deal with traumatic experiences and suffer in silence, under a cloak of secrecy and possible retribution, said Mlama. "It's a question of power relations. Normally these girls are very young. They look upon the teacher as their father. When the teacher does this, they are so shocked that they are even scared to talk about it. And girls will not come up and say they have been sexually harassed by the teacher, because it means their life; it means their academic career; it means their schooling. So many times the girls don't talk about it at all".

Jacob Bregman, the lead education specialist at the World Bank, which is co-sponsoring the secondary education in Africa meeting in Kampala, Uganda, also alluded to the pernicious and increasingly pervasive malpractice of sexual abuse against girls in some schools on the continent. Bregman told a news briefing that molestation by male teachers prejudiced the development of young girls, adding "A lot needs to be done before we can reach equality between boys and girls in education".

Citing the example of a hard working girl whose marks were inexplicably and persistently low, Bregman told journalists why her performance was deemed poor. "The girl had refused sexual advances from the teacher, so he failed her". He concluded that "girls are exposed to more risks than boys and, as they go into puberty, they are exposed to even more risks".

Mlama confirmed this trend, saying there were girls whose academic performance was "affected drastically". She noted that "especially when the girl refuses to have a relationship with the teacher, the tendency is for the teacher to harass the child academically". Girls were often marked down by their tormentors, simply because they refused their advances.

Bregman and Mlama are two of the delegates attending the week-long secondary education meeting, organized by the World Bank, the Paris-based Association for Development of Education in Africa (Adea) and the Academy for Educational Development (AED), with its headquarters in Washington DC. Both said the culture of silence surrounding the abuse of girls by their superiors in school must end.

Bregman called on the media in Africa to expose these crimes, "because even we have difficulty discussing this with governments, because they don't want to recognize the problem". He said African countries tended to ignore or evade the issue or shift the blame to others, saying such malpractice did not exist in their own school systems.

Mlama told AllAfrica that, because girls were reluctant to talk about sexual harassment and abuse at school, "it becomes difficult to find out to what extent this is happening in the schools. And of course if you ask the school management, they will always deny it, saying that it is not happening". At FAWE, Mlama and others - who specialize in the promotion of girls' education in Africa and gender equity in schools - are tackling these problems head on. She said statistics on sexual abuse against schoolgirls by male teachers were scarce, because so little evidence was documented, though anecdotal testimony indicated that the incidence was high.

Male teachers often refuse to take no for an answer, Mlama said. "You can imagine this 14 or 15 year-old who has to sit in class every day with this teacher, who continues to harass her constantly. So even if she is sitting in class, she can't concentrate because she is scared and it really affects their performance very badly because they cannot get help".

Mlama said the consequences were often even more serious than a chequered schooling for the girls. Some became infected with HIV/AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases. Other girls fell pregnant and dropped out of school.

Fawe runs gender awareness workshops at schools - for management and teachers to try to sensitize them to the problems. But she said empowering the girls themselves was the most effective solution. "The girl needs to have the skills to confront their teachers, to fight it, to say no or to speak out about it".

The organization has set up 'empowerment' programs at girls clubs in the schools. They are called 'Tuseme' (which means 'Speak Out' in Kiswahili), and the girls know they are not alone. They are taught to be self-confident and assertive and to discuss what their options are - including reporting the teachers who abuse them.

"In the countries where we have introduced the 'Tuseme' programme, the girls actually confront the teacher who harasses one of them. And if the teacher does not listen, they actually report it to the school management. And the cases of sexual harassment have diminished very, very rapidly in the schools where we have these programs". 'Speak Out' operates in a number of schools in Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya and Senegal and has just been introduced in Namibia and Gambia. Fawe hopes Ethiopia will be next on the list, followed by other African countries.

But Mlama acknowledged that few male teachers who sexually harass or abuse schoolgirls in Africa are prosecuted, because often families are too poor to afford to pay lawyers. Also, she said, schools say it is not their responsibility to take the teachers to court for such cases of malpractice, only to dismiss them.

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