Tackling Covid-19 lockdown teen pregnancies, school dropouts

Roselyne Sachiti Feaures, Health & Society Editor

Zimbabwe entered the year 2021 by going into a second lockdown necessitated by increased cases of Covid-19.

In March 2020, the prevalence of the Covid-19 pandemic pushed the country into its first lockdown, altering the way people live and congregate.

Barely fully recovered from the first lockdown, which brought with it a lot of life-changing situations for many, the second phase is a learning curve and an opportunity to address gaps in areas where women and young girls were affected.

During the first lockdown, a lot happened in terms of access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), maternal health, gender-based violence (GBV).

For instance, at least 415 school going girls dropped out of exam classes in Manicaland province alone during the Covid-19 lockdown period mainly due to marriage and pregnancy.

Only five boys dropped out of school for marital reasons in the province.

This is worrying given that these statistics are only for a single province. The countrywide picture could be more scary.

Cases of GBV also skyrocketed during the first lockdown.

A report entitled “Violence Against Women and Girls During the Covid-19 Crisis in Zimbabwe”, gathered data from five non-governmental organisations working with survivors of gender-based violence, including the Musasa Project, the Adult Rape Clinic and the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association.

The report, among other things, notes that cases of physical violence went up by 38,5 percent during April and May 2020.

“The increase in help-seeking could be due to increased incidence of violence, increased severity of violence, or the inability to use alternative options for escaping violence such as going to stay with relatives,” the report notes.

Reports of emotional violence over the same period were up by 80 percent.

This represented the sharpest rise during the lockdown, “possibly due to heightened household tensions resulting from confined living conditions and increased financial stress”.

With such information, and with the latest lockdown, the question is, what are the lessons learned from what happened during the first lockdown? How can these be addressed?

Shamwari Yemwanasikana director Ekenia Chifamba said in their line of work, regulations and restrictions put in place resulted in girls and young women falling victim to different vulnerabilities.

“There was a rise in GBV cases in the homes as people were now restricted in their homes trapped with their abusers. Restrictive barriers to access to SRHR and maternal services continued to be a detrimental problem,” she said.

Noticing this, said Chifamba, Shamwari Yemwanasikana together with other civil society organisations learnt of the need to ensure flexibility and adaptability of the workforce in cases of emergencies and disasters that affect the normal day-to-day operations.

“Multi-stakeholder engagement became vital in ensuring that clients continue to receive holistic assistance in cases of abuse as well as need of humanitarian assistance. Moreover, there is need to continue sensitising communities and advocating against GBV through embracing online campaigns to address such emerging issues,” she said.

According to Chifamba, it is of paramount importance that organisations have helplines that are specifically used for inquiries and clarification on cases of abuse as well as where one can get assistance given the prevailing conditions.

“In order to ensure that less girls drop out of school as a result of pregnancies, there is need to embrace online dialogues (virtual Dandaro Revasikana) on SRHR so as to ensure that every girl child is empowered with sufficient information and makes informed decisions,” she noted.

Additionally, Chifamba said, as noted during the first lockdown, most of the unintended pregnancies were as a result of idleness, hence caregivers in partnership with various organisations should ensure that the teenage adolescents are occupied with school work and other relevant work that keeps them busy so as to lessen their vulnerability to early sexual debut.

“Moreover, with many of the girls not having much knowledge about the law that protects them in cases of sexual abuse and the reporting mechanisms which further affects their capacities to act and respond to abuses thus they remain in silence. In turn this has allowed perpetrators to remain scotch free,” she explained.

Chifamba bemoaned how failure to timely report sexual abuse cases continues to increase girls risk of getting infected of STIS, HIV and AIDS as well as conceiving avoidable pregnancies.

“Thus, the need to work with the lawmakers so that the arm of the law does not spare all those who violate the rights of the girl in question and others who publicly harass the girl child,” she suggested.

Having learnt lessons during the first lockdown, she said, Shamwari YeMwanasikana has officers physically on the ground working under the Girls Protection and Support Services, offering assistance in cases of possible and occurred GBV.

The officers are also offering online services such as psychosocial support as well as legal aid to alleviate the possibility of sky-rocketing GBV cases.

“Online awareness campaigns remain a priority as officers engage girls, boys, women and men of the need to prevent GBV in communities during the lockdown period.

“A particular case in point is of the Girl Rights Movement who get educated so that they not only know how to identify GBV but also advocate against it for other peers. Thus, our helpline remains functional during the prevalence of the pandemic to ensure that clients and survivors can access assistance without physical movement.”

Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) executive director, Itai Rusike, said reaching out to young people with SRHR information and services during the first lockdown was not easy due to the travel restrictions and growing fear of going to health facilities due to the risk of infection.

As such, he said, there is need for new innovative ways to engaging and mobilising.

“There is need to address the water and electricity issues for young people to be able to follow the lockdown guidelines as most of the girls had to leave their homes to look for water and firewood and this exposes them to sexual gender-based violence (SGBV),” said Rusike.

While gains have been made towards gender equality, he noted, there are structural barriers that continue to stop women from accessing services that keep women and girls at heightened risk and experiencing inequalities. He concurred that to reduce girls dropping out of school, there is need to keep girls occupied, encourage online learning and engagements.

“There’s need to ensure that girls and young people have access to SRHR information and services during the lockdown period.

“We need to address the water and electricity issue so that girls do not spend so much time out of the house,” he said.

Rusike added the need to ensure that all the interventions related to Covid-19 address the unequal impact on women’s rights and well-being, including the alarming increases in GBV, and the diminished access to sexual and reproductive health services.

“Community health workers (CHWs) are trusted sources of information for community literacy and should support with contact tracing for Covid-19,” he said.

“CHWs continues up to this day to augment the work being done by the mainstream health sector, raising awareness, giving health advice, monitoring growth of children under five years, mobilising communities during outreach programs and for immunisation.”

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