Friday August 26, 2022
By Molly Blackall
Badra, 16, sits next to her village’s empty water storage container in Somaliland. She was forced to drop out of school eight months ago to spend her days making a four-hour round trip to the nearest water supply (Photo: Plan International)
Girls are being pulled out of school to marry or spend hours making dangerous treks for water, aid agencies warned
“I got married when we couldn’t afford my education. It was my parents’ choice,” said 19-year-old Hamda. “I wanted to continue my education, but there wasn’t enough for my family.”
Hamda’s story is one of many. Aid workers have warned that the growing hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa is forcing girls out of school, with many married off to ease the burden on families and bring in a dowry.
Roughly 15 million children are thought to be out of school across the region with an estimated 1.1 million children – more than half of which are girls – at a higher risk of dropping out to due to the drought.
Nakhungu Magero, East and Southern Africa gender-based violence adviser at Save the Children, said aid workers were seeing a “strong link” between the hunger crisis and girls dropping out of school, and a “surge in teenage pregnancies and child marriages”.
As is common in their home of Somaliland, Hamda’s family made their living from rearing livestock, but the crippling drought currently torturing the Horn of Africa wiped out their income. They became “destitute”.
Hamda was married, aged 18, to a 27-year-old man. “At first, I was sad about it, but later, I adapted to the situation,” she said.
When aid workers from Plan International met her in a camp for internally displaced people in the Toghdheer region of Somaliland, Hamda was heavily pregnant with twins. She hadn’t had any food all day.
“Sometimes you get cravings, especially in early pregnancy, but you can’t find what you’re craving for. For me, I used to like sour soup. Sometimes I could get it, but most of the time I couldn’t,” she said.
“I’m worried because I’m due to give birth in five days and I don’t have anything prepared [food, supplies] to help me through the maternity period.”
But the teenager still hopes to return to education. “I want my children to live a good life, to get an education and reach a higher level in life. I also hope to finish school, and to get a job in media and management.”
Alongside a rise in early marriage comes an increase in female genital mutilation; frequently a prerequisite to the union.
Hamda still hopes to return to school some day, and would like to work in media or management (Photo: Armstrong Kiprotich/Plan International)
With the cost of a typical food basket rising by 66 per cent in Ethiopia and 36 per cent in Somalia between January and June alone, families are resorting to these “extreme coping mechanisms.”
“Girls are often seen as a commodity used in exchange for livestock or married to those that are in a better position to look after them,” Ms Magero said.
Susan Otieno, Kenya country director of ActionAid, said that early marriage “reduces the number of dependants to be fed in the family and the dowry is considered as part of restocking to replace the animals that a household lost during drought.”
ActionAid has also seen girls missing school during menstruation, because their family cannot afford period products.
‘Risk of sexual violence’ on hours-long treks to find water
Many girls are also missing out on education to make hours-long treks to find water; dangerous journeys which put them at risk of rape and sexual violence.
In the Oromia region of Ethiopia, for example, water scarcity has reached an all-time high; a burden which “has been transferred primarily to girls”.
Hamda, 19, collecting water at a camp for internally displaced people in the Toghdheer Region of Somaliland. (Photo: Armstrong Kiprotich/ Plan International)
“Girls have reported that they have to walk long distances of up to seven to nine kilometres a day in search of water. Balancing this with school requirements and the expectation that comes with their role as girls has been challenging and many of them have either opted to or forced to drop out of school,” she said.
“Whilst walking these long distances in search of water, girls face huge risks including rape and sexual violence.”
Girls are often forced into transactional sex with the men who own the water sources to access the resource. Other men use their water as leverage to pressure the girls into marriage. Sometimes, there is violence.
Badra, a 16-year-old girl who lives in the Maroodi-Jeeh region of Somaliland, dropped out of school eight months ago to help her family collect water, walking a four hour round trip most days. Some in the community make the trip multiple times a day.
There has been no rain in her area for 11 months, according to community leaders, with 2022 marking the fourth consecutive year without enough rain. The community is dependent on livestock-rearing for income and food, but cannot keep its animals alive.
Badra said she missed going to school; she had wanted to be a teacher.
“I’d like to help those in need where there is no school, where there is no mosque. But now the drought has brought me here. I fetch water for my family because they have no one else.”
Her mother Sainab said that water was “the hardest thing for us”.
“It’s a very difficult time for us. Animals are dying and we don’t have many livestock left,” she said.
Badra, 16, and her mother Sainab, 35, at their home in the Maroodi-Jeeh Region of Somaliland. The nearest water source is a four-hour walk away (Photo: Plan International)
Sainab said the family do not count the number of meals they skip per week, but that it was “many”. “Some days, we don’t cook at all. We just sit here.”
When they do have food, boys in her family eat first.
“Boys and girls are the same to begin with. I have a son too. But when there is less food, the girl accepts it. She is a girl. But perhaps the boy will cry and say you did it on purpose,” Sainab said.
Across the Horn of Africa, 6.8 million children are suffering from acute malnutrition, according to Action Against Hunger.
‘You cannot hear the sound of hunger’
Sadia Allin, country director for Somalia at Plan International, warned that the withdrawal of girls from education was perpetuating a “cycle of vicious poverty.”
“In many societies, and Somalia is not immune, people respect others according to the size of their wallet. If women don’t have financial worth in society, their value in society is very low,” she said.
“Girls have proved that, given the chance, they can do well in school and leadership. When girls miss the opportunity to go to school, it impacts not just them but the whole society.
“One of the things people like me believe about why Somalia has been in crisis for so many years is because of the gender inequality. One half of society lagging behind the other means that the country will not achieve.”
“This crisis is going to impact those gains we have made over the past few years,” she added.
Badra, 16, next to the empty well in her village. She misses going to school and wants to be a teacher (Photo: Plan International)