What concerns us
Pregnancies among girls of school age in Namibia rose to over 3,600 cases last year, according to official reports. Particularly between March and September, during the school closures, the number increased dramatically. However, this is by no means mainly a matter of boys of the same age having sex with the girls, but of adult men and even relatives, who deliberately demand the sexual availability of young girls. A major problem is that society views this and domestic violence, which has also increased as a result of the pandemic, as an internal family matter . So if a girl or a woman bravely turns to the police and wants to file a report, she is usually turned away, even in cases of serious abuse and visible injuries.
What steps staff do in the projects for girls:
- Regular talks for educational purposes are held with children and parents.
- Joint visits to the doctor with the steps trusted teacher, to obtain contraceptives. Unfortunately, this is also a major problem: only a few doctors prescribe one, do not have the right ones in stock, or accuse the girls of behaving too loosely – to put it mildly.
- Unfortunately, there are also isolated pregnancies among schoolgirls in our projects. In Okakarara and in Gobabis, the girls who are expecting a child are able to return to school after the birth. But that is rather the exception – without steps and the trained teams of Sonja Schneider-Waterberg, Jackie Sanjath and Santiago Narib, who do everything they can to maintain contact with the girls, they too would drop out of school.
What you can do:
Prevent another girl from dropping out of school with a guardian angel sponsorship.
Because the guardian angel children come to the steps projects after school, where in smaller groups and protected spaces they can talk about contraception and other measures.
With a Guardian Angel special donation help – with an amount of your choice.
