New Delhi: The World Bank has decided to postpone its decision to give $500 million loan to Tanzania, following opposition by activists against the country’s policy of barring pregnant girls and young mothers from attending state schools.
Tanzanian civil society groups had last week sent a letter to the bank’s executive board to halt the loan until the country’s government passes a law allowing pregnant girls to attend regular secondary schools and end mandatory pregnancy tests.
In Tanzania, pregnancy tests twice a year are compulsory for girl students from grade eight onwards. The students are taken to toilets and made to urinate in a jar while a teacher waits outside each cubicle to make sure the samples are not swapped. If any student’s test comes back positive, she is immediately expelled.
According to a World Bank document, nearly 5,500 girls were not able to complete their secondary education in Tanzania in 2017 because of adolescent pregnancy. The United Nations Population Fund, meanwhile, says the percentage of teenage girls who have given birth or who were pregnant had increased from 23 per cent in 2010 to 27 per cent in 2016 in the country.
Another $300 mn loan withdrawn in 2018
The meeting to discuss the loan was postponed after the bank held an emergency gathering with Tanzanian activists and international human rights organisations Monday.
This, however, is not the first time that the World Bank has had problems with the Tanzanian government’s policy regarding pregnant girls.
In 2018, a $300 million educational loan to Tanzania was withdrawn over concerns about expelling girl students and the introduction of a law that made it a crime to question official statistics.
While the Tanzanian government amended the second law in 2019, it did not introduce any legislation to change the law expelling pregnant girls and young women from receiving education.
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