Giving Compass' Take:

• Global Citizen examines laws in Tanzania that have prevented young mothers and pregnant women from receiving equal access to education — and what's being done to change the system. 

• Which human rights groups are advocating for change in this area? How would allowing equal access to education improve Tanzania's society as a whole? 

· Read more about Tanzania's women traders and their relationship to the formal economy


The Tanzanian government agreed in November to ensure all pregnant girls and mothers receive an education, but the reality is that many still don’t have accessible options.

Human rights groups aren’t backing down on trying to end the country’s strict laws, which ban pregnant students from regular school and require young mothers to resort to vocational or unaffordable private institutions, Al Jazeera reports. Organizations offering other alternatives for young women to continue their educations are struggling to service all the students in need.

A discriminatory law first introduced in the 1960s and reinforced by President John Magufuli in 2017 stops pregnant girls in Tanzania from attending regular school and punishes teachers who don’t honor the ban. Schoolgirls are often subjected to mandatory pregnancy tests and run the risk of being arrested if pregnant.

This policy affects a significant portion of Tanzania's population. The country’s government estimates there were 70,000 teen pregnancies in the country in 2017, according to Al Jazeera. It also has one of the highest rates of child marriage prevalence in the world, according to the organization Girls Not Brides, putting almost 2 out of 5 girls in the country at risk of entering a child marriage and stopping their education.

Read the full article about Tanzania's laws and women's education by Leah Rodriguez at Global Citizen.