The coronavirus pandemic is the biggest and most urgent global crisis children have faced since World War Two. Children’s lives are being upended. Their support systems ripped away, their borders closed, their educations lost, their food supply threatened.
Existing problems that plague girls’ wellbeing, education and health are being exacerbated by the current pandemic, with almost 130 million girls out of school, 500 million girls and women are unable to access adequate water and sanitation for menstrual hygiene management, almost 1 million girls disproportionately affected by HIV/Aids.
In a village in Malawi, a landlocked country in south-eastern Africa, one woman is using her experience of early marriage and pregnancy to inspire girls to continue their education.
Jausa Silika, 38, is someone every ambitious girl child looks up to in Mkata, a village in the south of Malawi. Trained in community nursing and midwifery, she helps deliver 70 babies per month at the Malombe Health Centre, located 41 kilometres east of Mangochi Town.
'I was employed to be a midwife at Malombe Health Centre in 2014 and I am proud of what I have done so far. I never imagined I would reach where I am,' says Jausa.
In 2014, she graduated with a Certificate in Midwifery and passed her Nursing Council exams, allowing her to start practising at a local health centre. She was the first girl from Malombe to become a midwife and practice in the same area.
Tales of her success spread like wildfire in the area, and she is widely regarded as a positive role model to encourage girls to continue with their education and avoid early marriages.
Jausa’s story of success as a midwife is a source of pride and inspiration to many. It is all the more powerful for girls in the community because Jausa’s path to success was paved with hurdles, as she herself was confronted with the challenges of early marriage and pregnancy.
Child marriage is a serious problem in Malawi. Despite a 2017 constitutional amendment raising the age of marriage to 18, for both boys and girls, about 42 per cent of girls are married before the age of 18, and nine per cent before the age of 15.
In 2000, at the age of 17, Jausa became pregnant and gave birth to her first child. To care for her new-born, she had to drop out of school. Life was increasingly difficult for young Jausa, but thanks to the support of an aunt, she was able to pursue her education.
'My uncle refused me to continue with school because he felt I didn’t like school and proposed that I do business instead. It was his wife, my aunt, who convinced him that I go back to school where I re-started in Form 2 just to catch up with the rest of the students,' she said.
'I just had the passion on my own to do school. I had this burning desire to do school,' says Jausa.
Defying the odds, Jausa eventually passed her Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) in 2006.
'When I came here in Mangochi I was a star because with MSCE in hand, people could not believe it was the same girl whom they knew.'
Now in her early twenties and with her degrees in hand, she started volunteering with several community initiatives to advise young girls, including at Namasu Primary school, which she had attended as a child. Jausa tells girls in the community to remain focused and take education seriously.
'Learn first and marriage later. For those who already got pregnant while in school, don’t lose hope but continue until you achieve what you want just like I did,' she tells them.
Community and religious leaders in Malawi have become increasingly aware of the effects of pregnancy and early marriage on girls over the past 20 years, and have worked in collaboration with schools and villages to raise awareness about the importance of girl’s education and preventing early marriage.
The main drivers of child marriage are poverty, cultural and religious traditions, and peer pressure. UNICEF is working with the Government of Malawi, as well as traditional and religious leaders, to protect girls and boys from sexual violence, including child marriage and other harmful practices.
'We are partnering with traditional and religious leaders to break social norms that enable child marriages,' says UNICEF Malawi’s Chief of Child Protection Afrooz Kaviani Johnson. 'Social and cultural beliefs relating to sexuality, child marriage and the position of girls in society, contribute to the normalization of violence against children and gender-based violence.'
This International Day of the Girl, donate to Unicef UK’s Save Generation Covid appealto help UNICEF’s to supply vital medical equipment, and provide better, water and sanitation education and social services for girls at risk of missing out on lifechanging facilities and services due to the pandemic.