2009-02-09 10:35:35
By Njonanje Samwel, The guardian, Tanzania
A Swedish legislator has called on the government to review the country`s education policy to allow pregnant school children to continue with studies.
Hillevi Engstrom, a member of the Swedish Parliament from the Moderate Party (Conservative), said it was unfair to deny a girl child her right to education because of pregnancy.
The law maker said she would advise her government to set conditions for Swedish development aids to Tanzania with a view of forcing it to form education policy that would favour pregnant school children.
Engstrom gave the remarks in Dar es Salaam over the weekend.
She is among four Swedish legislators who are on an official tour in the country to visit, among other things, various development projects funded by the Swedish government.
According to Engstrom, expelling pregnant children from school was not acceptable anywhere in the civilized world and that the trend was a total violation of children rights as stipulated in the United Nation`s Convention on the Rights of Children.
``Access to education is one of the core pillars of the rights of children. As the world is about to mark the 20th anniversary of the convention, Tanzanian authorities must be at the forefront to protect the rights of its children,`` she said.
She said that some of the girls get pregnant through rape and ignorance.
``Worse still girls receive `double` punishment because they are made pregnant and expelled from school leaving males untouched. This is absolutely not acceptable. There should be a review of the laws so that girls are also allowed to continue with studies``, she said.
She said when they return home she would talk to the minister responsible for foreign aid to see how Sweden could press the Tanzanian government to change its education policy.
Another Swedish legislator Lina Granlund called for the government to embark on safe abortion for young and school children.
According to her, the move would help to avoid expelling pregnant girls from school and reduce pre and post delivery deaths.
She said school children were not healthier enough to make them deliver safely. ``The government should now look on the safe abortion method as scientific fact shows that school age is not suitable for one to have pregnancy,`` added Granlund.
Staffan Uddeholt, another legislator, said efforts to stop early pregnancies must go parallel with efforts to scale-down HIV/Aids prevalence rate.
According to him, studies show that early pregnancies were linked to new HIV/Aids transmission cases and that in most African countries, men are said to be the most players in transmitting the disease.
The Swedish MP called for men to be more involved in the fight.
``Advancing men in the fight against the disease is vital as according to African culture, men have powerful influence in many aspects including sexual relation and that their decisions are judged to be final,`` added Uddeholt
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