Non-Legal Aspects of Teenage Mothers' Right to Education: Essay

There are several factors that are non-legal that either directly or indirectly impact the right to education for teenage mothers. However, that variance is premised on a regional basis; albeit that, there are several other ancillary notions that affect the same and they inter alia comprise poverty, illiteracy, low literacy levels, and any more. This essay will explore the veracity of each of the above-mentioned notions and how they impact on the right to education for teenage mothers as enunciated below.

Abortion

Simply defined, abortion refers to the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy. According to Gillian Nantume and Dr. Dorothy Balaba, “A typical adolescent girl fears to tell anyone she is pregnant. Many of them are dying in the hands of quacks and we never get to know these girls” (monitor.co.ug). For example, in Uganda, the right to life is envisaged under Article 22(2) of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda. This provision espouses that no person has the right to terminate the life of an unborn child, except as may be authorized by law. This affects the right to education for teenage mothers since many girls in a young stage mostly those in urban areas, abort in the most unsafe ways and the biggest numbers end up dropping from school because of the inevitable challenges and hardships involved. Resultantly, the numbers of teenage mothers are alarming in rural areas as juxtaposed to Urban areas.

Lack of Maternal Skills

Maternal means of relating to, belonging to, or characteristic of a mother. Skill can be defined as the ability to do something well or expertise. The lack of maternal skills is perpetuated by age and non-exposure to the realities and other expectations at that time, hence the emergence of mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, low self-efficacy, isolation, etc. Mental health is a person’s condition regarding their psychological and emotional well-being. This results due to the phobia of getting married. The surrounding stigma and the attitude accorded teenage mothers by society is appalling; because of their young age, they tend to feel out of place, leading to depression, anxiety, and isolation and tend to leave school because of all these factors. This makes the girls leave school and hence their right to education is denied.

Inadequate Social and Spiritual Support

Many teenage mothers face inadequate social and spiritual support since many people are criticizing and stigmatizing them because of getting pregnant before completing school. The Bible interdicts sexual immorality as is denoted in Ephesians 5:3, but sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, it is proper among saints. The religious leaders condone it and most of the time don’t offer teenage mothers any form of insulation or protection, and the society around them criticizes and ignores teenage mothers. However, this can be improved if teenage mothers are availed of the requisite support whether it is spiritual or social. And in cases where they are given support, it is inadequate since very few people will not criticize and ignore the teenage mothers, and because of this spiritual attitude and social criticism, teenage mothers leave school and go in hiding and most of the time even change their society because they cannot keep up with the shame. Carol Atukunda, the gender technical advisor in the Ministry of Education, advocates for girls to be given maternity leave. In her own words, she suggests that girls should be given maternity leave from the sixth month of pregnancy to go and prepare for childbirth. After one year, they can go back to school and continue with their studies. However, this opinion received a lot of criticism, for instance, Jonathan Oyako, a 60-year-old retired tutor, said that it is like you are giving them a reward for engaging in premarital sex. It is like you are saying it is okay to get pregnant. And he further said that, if you expel them, their peers will know that it is bad and they will not engage in sex. However, this is wrong since this is just done to the girls leaving the perpetrators, and both young people should know the price for their actions.

Influence of Peers

A peer is a person who is the same age or has the same social position or the same abilities as other people in a group. And influence means the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself. Teenage mothers get pregnant most of the time due to peer influence, and when they have produced and can now be termed as teenage mothers, they still have their agemates who advise them on getting jobs, let's say as house helps. And this makes them lose out on their right to education thinking they think they can fend on their own for their children.

Financial Problems

Financial means of or relating to finance or finances; therefore, financial problems are defined as a situation where money worries are causing you to stress. This normally affects teenage mothers because they are normally left by the perpetrators to fend on their own, and even after giving both have to take on the responsibilities of both parents, this makes them leave school or put aside their right to education in the quest to fulfill their financial constraints. Annet Musiimenta is only 18 years old, but a mother of two boys aged 4 and 3. She said in her story that she fell pregnant and dropped out of school after her mother a widow decided she was better off married to the father of her child to secure her future. She however later left her sons in the care of her mother towards the end of last year bought a one-way bus ticket from Mbarara and found work as a housemaid around Mengo, a residential suburb of Kampala in the capital of Uganda. She says that life was unbearable as there was not much to eat and the man would come home drunk and sometimes beat her up, she also says that she does not regret leaving the husband's home because she’s now earning money which she sends to the mother to look after children. This is one example among thousand others of girls being forced to get married once they get pregnant and then leaving their homes to go get money to feed and look after their children. This makes them neglect or leave out their right to education.

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Family Conflicts

This refers to active opposition between family members. It can be a conflict within a couple or between parents and children, or again siblings. It can take a wide variety of forms, including verbal, physical, sexual, financial, or psychological. One of the popular definitions of conflict, offered by Coser, asserts that conflict is a struggle over values and claims to scarce status, power, and resources in which the aims of the opponents are to neutralize, injure or eliminate the rival. The Cambridge Dictionary defines a conflict to mean an active disagreement between opposing opinions or needs. Conflicts of whichsoever kind always leave families apart, whether it is between family members or outside people. These conflicts deny the teenage mothers a right to education because, among the family, there could be people leaning so much on religion and cultural beliefs, hence would not allow or advise the mothers to go back to school as they think it would be a shame the family, and because of this the teenage mothers right to education is denied.

Low Self-Esteem

Self-esteem means the belief and confidence in one’s own ability and value. There different types of esteem, there’s low self-esteem, inflated self-esteem, and high self-esteem. People with this type of esteem do not value themselves, they do not trust in their possibilities. And the insecurity they may be feeling may be carried over into almost every situation. Fear of failure is something that torments them and holds people with this type of esteem back. People with inflated self-esteem think that they are better than others and have no doubts about underestimating everyone else. It is a very negative self-esteem as it holds them back from establishing affectionate and healthy relationships. And people with high self-esteem value accept themselves, they are not driven to make themselves superior to others and do not seek to prove their value by measuring themselves against a comparative standard. Their joy is in being who they are, not in being better than someone else. As said by Nathaniel Burden, self-esteem has four elements:

• Recognizing and accepting strengths. Each person has special abilities and traits. These strengths make an individual unique.
• Creating a sense of belonging. Relationships that are established at home in the school or community help young people feel they are part of a group. The affiliation and satisfaction young people experience within groups contribute to feelings of security and support.
• Developing a sense of power. Students who have a sense of power believe they have the ability to affect their own lives and the lives of others are made with this power, they are capable to take charge and make changes.
• Having and imitating positive role models. Young people need standards to give direction and meaning to their lives. These standards are developed through experiences within family and peer groups with other people who are significant in their lives. When they emulate ideals such as honesty, dependability, and loyalty, young people become confident in their ability to distinguish between right and wrong.

Low self-esteem people tend to be hypersensitive; they have a fragile sense of self that can easily be wounded by others. They are hypervigilant and hyper-alert to signs of rejection, inadequacy, and rebuff.

Teenage mothers tend to develop low self-esteem because of the criticisms from people in different categories and their inner minds making them feel like they can no longer be able to do anything productive or beneficial to themselves. This esteem makes them feel out of place in society, and eventually, they cannot go back to school, even when given a chance, this leads to their right to education being denied. However, they can resolve this by not listening to their inner critic minds and standing up for their needs and benefits.

Low Educational and Ambition Goals

Ambition is defined as a strong desire to do or achieve something typically requiring determination and hard work. This happens when in a society people or girls fail to get anyone who inspires them to achieve any educational status. This is common in villages since most girls get married off at a young stage for wealth purposes, the ones who get educated never return or become so exposed that they depict nothing that one can imitate, and no one sees the difference between the educated and uneducated. This lack of goals and ambition makes girls leave school to do other things, among which getting married has the highest priority. And once they are married, they get pregnant, produce and they qualify to be teenage mothers. They chose to leave out their right to education for marriage and looking after their families.

Conclusion

Summing up, various non-legal aspects, as explained above, contribute to the denial of teenage mothers' right to education, so these aspects should be given much attention and care to ensure that teenage mothers' right to education is promoted.