THE Forum for African Women Educationalists Zambia chapter (FAWEZA) says it wants the girl child re-entry policy to be turned into law.
FAWEZA executive director, Costern Kanchele observes that the girl child re-entry policy which was introduced in 1997 has no force on its own to compel guardians and parents to take back their siblings resulting to low levels of girl child retention in most learning institution in the country.
ZANIS reports that Mr Kanchele disclosed this at a media engagement meeting attended by several journalists drawn from different media houses which was officially opened by Southern province information officer, Charles Mangwato.
“The re-entry policy is not law so it is not effective as it is not mandatory. So we want to come up with a framework for it to be turned into a statutory instrument (SI) so that it is law that can penalize those who would not comply to it.
“ We are a consortium of civil society organizations and we have knocked on the doors of the parliamentary committee on education and they are excited about it,” Kanchele says.
FAWEZA in partnership with FAWE-Africa, SAT and Plan International with financial support from the Dutch government has embarked on a five year advocacy project (2021-25) dubbed : ‘Break Free’ whose objective is to reduce child marriages and teenage pregnancies in the country.
It cites inadequate awareness on gender based violence and sexual reproductive human rights (SRHR), high cost of education, poverty, traditional norms, the impact of COVID-19 and the ineffective implementation of laws and policies, particularly the re-entry policy as drivers that perpetuate child marriages and teenage pregnancies.
The project has so far managed to retrieve 190 girls through its established grassroots advocacy structures in the selected five schools per each district of Kalomo, Kazungula and Monze of Southern province.
In the last four years over 15,000 teenage pregnancies and child marriages under the age of 18 have been reported, the media engagement meeting learnt.
The Break Free project interventions are also being implemented in Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi and Rwanda.
It seeks to see a reduction of child marriages and teenage pregnancies and to contribute to an improved implementation retention mechanism of the girl child policy in the selected 15 schools of the three districts of Southern province.
