Motherhood in Childhood

community environments, she may feel stigmatized
by an early pregnancy (especially if it is
outside of marriage) and seek an abortion, even
in settings where abortions are illegal and unsafe,
often accepting the risk of a disastrous health
outcome.
Impact on girls’ education
Girls who remain in school longer are less likely
to become pregnant. Education prepares girls for
jobs and livelihoods, raises their self-esteem and
their status in their households and communities,
and gives them more say in decisions that
affect their lives. Education also reduces the likelihood
of child marriage and delays childbearing,
leading to healthier eventual birth outcomes.
A new survey of countries to assess their
progress in implementing the Programme of
Action of the 1994 International Conference
on Population and Development confirms that
higher literacy rates among women between ages
15 and 19 are associated with significantly lower
adolescent birth rates (UNFPA, 2013a).
A recent analysis of 39 countries found
that—with the exceptions of Benin and Mali—
unmarried girls (ages 15 to 17) who attend
school are considerably less likely to have had
premarital sex, as compared to their out-ofschool
peers (Biddlecom et al., 2008; Lloyd,
2010). These findings underscore the protective
effects that an education may confer against adolescent
pregnancy and its adverse outcomes.
The social and economic benefits to a girl who
stays in school are great, but so are the costs to
a girl who leaves school early—or is forced out
because of a pregnancy.
The causal relationship, however, between
adolescent pregnancies and early school-leaving
can be difficult to disentangle (UNFPA, 2012a).
Girls who become pregnant may have already
dropped out of school before the pregnancy or
were never in school to begin with. One study of
francophone African countries showed that only
between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of girls leave
school—or are expelled—because of pregnancy
(Lloyd and Mensch, 2008). Instead, the study
found that “union formation”—first marriage or
cohabitation—is more likely to be the reason.
Still, for many adolescents who become mothers,
their formal education comes to a permanent
halt, either because of individual circumstances,
MARRIED, AND BACK IN SCHOOL
Filesia is a free-spirited, bubbly 15-year-old, chatting and giggling
among her friends. She is enjoying her life as a Standard 8 primary
school student in Malawi and says she cannot wait to get to secondary
school within the year.
But Filesia is not quite like all the other students in her class. Her
parents forced her to drop out of school and get married after she
became pregnant at the age of 13.
“My boyfriend, who was 18 at the time, enticed me to have sex with
him. He told me that I was too young to get pregnant and I believed
him,” said Filesia. She became pregnant after having sex twice. “I knew
nothing about contraceptives so we did not use any protection.”
“My parents said they could no longer keep me in their house
after they discovered I was pregnant. They handed me over to my
boyfriend’s family and we started living together after conducting a
traditional wedding,” Filesia said.
Filesia stayed married for two years after giving birth to a baby boy,
but she has now returned to school, rescued from life as an underage
bride by the Community Victim Support Unit, supported by the United
Nations Joint Programme on Adolescent Girls led by UNFPA.
“I now know about contraceptives through the youth club I joined.
I do not intend to indulge in sex again until I finish school because I
lived under a lot of poverty when I got married,” said Filesia. Filesia
says she wants to be a policewoman. “I want to be rescuing other girls
who are forced into early marriages.”
THE STATE OF WORLD POPULATION 2013
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