By ELSIE EYAKUZE

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Following the remarks that President Magufuli made about pregnant students and their educational fate as he sees it, many of us realised that we’re in the middle of a real clash of ideas about how to get life right.

Poor women, eh. Our life-bearing bodies, especially when young and nubile, are always the battlefield of the morality wars. Just to get the obvious out of the way: I’m siding with the young mothers here.

Where is the logic in ensuring that those who will need life skills immediately should be denied access to them? Pregnant students who bear to term get to be mothers, single more often than not.

They need all the knowledge they can muster to help them take care of their children. Even something as simple as making sure that young’uns are given proper dosages of medication can depend on a mother’s confidence in her numeracy.

Then there’s the economic aspect. Education tends to lead to more income, more income means better nutrition, better clothing, better chances for your child’s education and possible future success in life.

Being born to a teenage mother in a developing sub-Saharan African country like Tanzania whose GDP keeps trying to lick the sticky floor of global poverty is challenge enough, why make things worse for all involved?

There are those, like my president and my former first lady, who would like us to believe that moral failings are the reason for student pregnancies.

Sure, but whose moral failing exactly? When it comes to the public education system, there is one glaring omission: We don’t have comprehensive sex education (which includes talking about your legal rights and protections as a minor) nor do we provide access to basic sexual health services.

I would argue that this makes the state complicit, guilty if you will, in the matter of young female students having unplanned pregnancies. Yes, Mr President: You are in fact part of the problem of why young students are vulnerable to early pregnancies, and what you are trying to do about it is the wrong thing.

The best protection against unwanted anything has always been knowledge and access to support.

This is not rocket science, there is plenty of evidence from around the world on how to tackle the issue and expelling pregnant teenagers is not one of them.

If I had a suspicious nature, I would consider this attack on young female students as a piece of evidence that my government is now in the grip of a most corrosive form of conservatism – actively hating on women and social progressiveness.

I haven’t been ignorant of the frequency with which faith and the name of God are being raised in matters public, whether it be the opening of meetings or general remarks made by public figures.

While I commend and admire people of strong faith, in the hope it actually translates into personal rectitude, let us take a moment to remember that Tanzania is a secular republic.

There is a reason why we separate church and state and we have to find a way to handle moral issues with an eye to serving all citizens, not punishing the vulnerable... an act of secular love that is surely not outside the reach of leadership that places value on morals.

While the backlash against Magufuli’s pronouncements has been gratifying, once the dust settles down I hope we continue to be defiant. I hope that educators in the public system go rogue on this one – invite health workers from time to time perhaps to talk to teenagers about sex.

Quietly reintegrate young mothers into the school system, guerrilla-style if you can. I hope parents take up the slack and do that one thing African parents hate the most: Talk to your children. You’d be surprised how smart and decisive well-informed youth can be.

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report, http://mikochenireport.blogspot.com. E-mail: [email protected]

Also read:

• Teen mums debate: TZ lobby groups to defy ban threat
• Denying education to pregnant teens is barbaric, backward
• Activists slam Magufuli for teen mums school ban