Two students raped and fell pregnant_ Guardian_ 26 May 2016

Name of the story: Two students raped and fell pregnant

Name of the media house: Guardian

Country: Tanzania

Synopsis

Brief description of the item of work you submitted and motivation of why it is a good example of gender awareness and sensitivity in advancing gender equality Post-2015.

The article is about a Form 2 student who was found pregnant after being raped, when she was 16 years old. She was not discouraged and continued with her education with her pregnancies until she delivered a daughter. She continued with her education while taking care of her babies and no, she reached Form V.

This was possible because of her courage and her family support as well as the existence of the Spinsters ACT f Zanzibar-Tanzania that allows pregnant student to continue with their studies if they are not marria

She is an example to other Zanzibar girls who quit school after being pregnant-ed either by being raped or forced marriage, because the common practice that most of the victims are either quit school due to shame and stigmatisation or forced to be married after being impregnated which deny them opportunity continue with their studies. Another reason that made them quit study is poverty and lack of support from the family and the society. These types of girls are always psychological effected, but this one manage to survive all the Odds until he completed and passed Ordinary Level Education which in Tanzania is Form iv and now is proceeding to Advanced Level Education where She is on Form V.

While at the same time looking after her daughter, which is not an easy task for such young, and student mother. I believe this is a good example of gender awareness and very sensitive in advancing gender equality, particularly on the side of ensuring girls are getting higher education which is a problem in my country. The cry against girls’ school dropout is very high in my community, so the story of these brave girls worth studied, written and published as an example and hence submitted for your program consideration.

Background

Why did you produce the story? What problem or context is it responding to?

I produce this story to teach through awareness my community and the world at large that for a girl to get pregnant while study should not be taken as the end of her study, but there is possibility for her to continue with her studies if she get legal and social support from the family and authority. This story came to my attention from the fact that such kind of girls are not to blame, because they are raped which is very sad.

I consider the courage of this girl as lesson to many poor girls in the country who experienced the same problem and unfortunately, they quit studies or opt to get married. I produce this article to respond to the rampant of such sad stories among girls in my country where families due to feeling shame and fear of their daughter being stigmatised do not report a lot of them, other opted to marry. I also wanted to aware the families and the society to change their perceptions on such incident and while they are fighting child abuse, they have to find constructive way to handle them for the benefit of the girls.

Key objectives

What did you hope to achieve with this coverage?

To educate the public on better way of handling student pregnancies by emphasizing on giving them opportunity to continue with their studies and to convince them using example on how this is possible. My other aim is to discourage the society not to deny girls opportunities to continue with their studies. Because of being pregnant, as well as to discourage tendency of marrying those victims of rape by fearing of shame, because that increase the pace of raping activities instead of controlling them bearing in mind that such married are not surviving long hence increase girls problem and poverty.

Target audience

Who did you hope to reach? Did you succeed in reaching this audience? What evidence do you have to that effect?

Since this problem is very huge in the society, I hope to reach different members of the society including policy makers, parents, students, teachers, authorities i.e. Government, Non-Governmental Organizations and Women and Human rights activists and a public at large. I believe that I was succeeded to reach a high number of audience; first, the paper that published the article is NIPASHE, which is number two in readership within Tanzania.

Second various stakeholders of the issue including the Government Education Registrar in Zanzibar (Ms.Siajabu Suleiman Pandu), and the Coordinator on INTERNEWS Tanzania chapter contacted me. Tanzania Media Women Association (TAMWA) also are interested with the articles and they proposed to make follow up of the girl as well as searching for such stories. The main evidence that the article was read by the target audience is from their direct responses to the writer. In addition, different views provided by various stakeholders on the article also show that it reached a convincing number of target audience.

How did you go about researching and writing the story?

How did you gather the data, how many sources, female and male did you consult? Why did you choose these sources and how were their voices important?

About ten sources were consulted in producing these articles, but only four sources were quoted in these articles, where two were female and two male. I choose these sources because they represent a number of member of the public, their voices are very important because they are representing a large member of the community.

Feedback

What impact did it have? What evidence do you have to illustrate impact?

Besides sending this important message to the society, this article has proven to influence the targeted audience. From the fact that a number of stakeholders as described on part 11 of this questionnaire responded to the message from the articles and provide the interest as well as the family and the victim were happy because they reduce overwhelmed over the tragedy of their daughter and were happy to be teachers of other families concerning. Activist organizations like TAMWA follow up the stories on their extra activities as well as coverage of student pregnancies problems so a number of such issues were unveiled. The victim being on continuous contact with me and give me her educational development shows how She is determined to tell her story and its progress to other fellow. Also the education Registrar is on the plan to collects and rewards those girls who were forcely imp-regnant and continue to study until they pass.Ref: 255 773 747252 (TAMWA), 255 777 494254 (Educational Registrar) and 255 754 360142 (INTERNEWS).

Follow up

How would you conduct a follow up to your story and why?

I am following up this story by being close to the victim and the family as well as other stakeholders. From the interest shown by other activists and stakeholders, I am following the progress of these girls and other and I will publish when reasonable information collected.

I am also closer to the Registrar of Education who is assisting me on getting information on what actions are being taken concerning the issue that I publish. Form stakeholders like TAMWA, I am following up this story as a sample case of other such cases by looking for other victims’ success or tragedy stories. I adopted this such story to be part of my career where I will always search and produce such or related stories as I have already done since that one. Click here to read the article.