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Success Story
Forced marriage no
substitute for education
Mothers For Girls’ Education
Photo: USAID/André Roussel
Céline Nambi fights with the Association
of Mothers of Students to keep girls in
school in Tabota, Benin.
“I witnessed mothers taking
initiatives and convincing
parents to send their daughters
to school,” said Céline Nambi,
a member of the Mothers
Association of Tabota, Benin.
“Before, girls did not go far in their studies. Today, girls have a chance
and they are coming back to school”, said Céline Nambi, speaking
on behalf of the Mothers Association of Tabota, a remote village in
northern Benin. “At first, I was skeptical, but I witnessed mothers
taking initiative and convincing parents to send their daughters back to
school.”
A USAID project is working to increase girls’ enrollment and retention in
primary school in 9 northern districts of Benin where the gap between
the number of girls and boys in school is most prominent, and the
number of girls completing primary school is the lowest.
The project’s activities aim to improve the capacities of the primary
school parents to support girls’ education. USAID has helped create
and support 500 associations for mothers of students. Mothers
associations cooperate with the existing, but predominantly malecontrolled
parents associations to raise awareness about the
importance of girls’ education, assist girls to enroll in school, and
monitor their attendance.
In Benin, use of poor, often traffi cked, children for labor is one of the
reasons that keep young boys and girls out of school. A 2007 study
shows that 86 percent of trafficked children are girls between 6-14
years old. “When the mothers association school enrollment campaign
started,” said Aime N’Toua Kouambe, Tabota’s school teacher, “they
discovered that 16 girls and one boy were away, many in Nigeria, as
the result of abduction, and arranged or forced marriages. Their age:
between 10 and 14 years old. The mothers association succeeded in
bringing five girls and the boy back to school and is searching for the
others. Association members are on the look-out for girls in danger of
being trafficked or married by force.”
When they discover a girl has been abducted to be forced into
marriage or labor, mothers association members talk to the child
trafficker, who is often a male youth, and try to convince him to return
the girl. If they fail, they file a complaint with law enforcement officials
who detain the boy’s father until the girl is brought back. At that time,
law enforcement officials require the trafficker sign an agreement not to
do it again.
Successful mothers and parents associations show that organized
parents can keep boys and girls in school. They also play an important
role in improving schools and education at the local level. They
convince families of the importance of education, rescue trafficked
children, raise money, and build thatched-roof classrooms. They
advocate for education authorities to build permanent classrooms to
support additional students and teachers.
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