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The 22-year-old author Eunice Naffie Mustapha wrote her book "Girlz Planete: Teenage Pregnancy" to educate young women
Photo:
Lens Studios
Henry wants sex as a present for Valentine's Day.
Amy is younger than him.
She likes him, wanted a boyfriend.
Henry writes a lot to her on WhatsApp.
Also that it is now time to sleep together.
Amy consults with her friends who are excited and motivated.
She decides that she will try Henry.
But he wants more in bed.
"Baby, stay still and let me do this. I like it without a condom. Meat on meat will be the best experience for you, my darling," Henry tells her.
When Amy objects, he gets angry.
After all, she allows everything.
Later, she won't dare to tell her friends that her first time wasn't nice.
And not that it felt like she was "incessantly stabbed with a knife".
This is one of many scenes in the book "Girlz Planete: Teenage Pregnancy" designed to help young women in Sierra Leone understand how important it is to take care of yourself - and not to get pregnant.
"We don't learn it in school or from our parents," says 22-year-old author Eunice Naffie Mustapha.
"I want to help young girls make the right decisions. In any case, our society doesn't help them. Sex is a big taboo."
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A pregnant woman about to give birth in Freetown: Many young women are rejected by their families and cannot go back to school when they have children
Photo:
MARCO LONGARI / AFP
Mustapha, who is now studying law, wrote the book two years ago.
"I thought maybe, as a young woman, I could better reach other young women with my words," says Mustapha.
The topic of pregnancy accompanied her in her everyday school life and on the streets of the capital Freetown.
Sierra Leone has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the world.
According to a 2015 Unicef survey, three out of ten teenage girls are affected.
Child marriages are also common in the West African country: almost 40 percent of girls are married before their 18th birthday.
Eunice Naffie Mustapha was only able to publish her guide a few months ago.
"Today the book is more topical than ever," says Mustapha.
"The corona crisis will leave even more young women pregnant and alone."
Aid organizations share the author's assumption.
According to a new study by the charity Save the Children, the fight against Covid-19 in Sierra Leone could result in 23,000 additional teenage pregnancies by the end of this year.
One reason for this is the school closings since the end of March.
The last time schools had to close was in 2014, when a state of emergency was declared due to the Ebola epidemic.
According to the United Nations Development Program, the pregnancies of underage girls in the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone have risen by 65 percent.
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School children in Sierra Leone: For girls, lessons mean not only education, but also security
Photo:
SAIDU BAH / AFP
School in Sierra Leone and other African countries means not only education, but also security.
If it goes away, girls are often unsupervised and therefore unprotected for a large part of the day.
Some are abused by their relatives or neighbors.
Some have to go to work and, for example, sell goods on the street alone.
In great need, some also sell themselves to raise money for food.
The corona pandemic endangers hard-won successes for equality for women on the African continent.
And it exacerbates problems that led to inequality before the first Corona case - such as teenage pregnancies.
With her book, Mustapha creates a close relationship with young women and their world of experience.
Their protagonists speak in slang, as they would among themselves.
Telling of the first contacts with men, arguments with their parents.
Discuss everything with their friends.
"I say a lot about sex that is really inappropriate," says Mustapha.
"That is necessary, otherwise nothing will ever change. Our problems are deeply rooted in everyday life."
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Mustapha is happy that her book has finally appeared.
"Since then, many girls have contacted me," she says.
"The need to talk about sex is great."
Photo:
Lens Studios
Here Eunice Naffie Mustapha tells how she experiences the living conditions of young women in Sierra Leone - and what changes are needed to reduce the number of pregnant teenagers:
"I was ten years old when I first said the word 'sex'. My friends and I exchanged ideas in the schoolyard. Neither of us really knew. There are no sex education classes in Sierra Leone. Parents speak usually not with their children about sexuality.Sex is a big taboo.
At the same time, the effects of sex are everywhere.
There are many pregnant girls, often just 14 years old.
However, that doesn't lead to anyone taking care of them.
Most of the time they are rejected.
Until recently, Sierra Leone had a law that banned pregnant girls from going to school.
The West African Supreme Court ruled that this discriminated against the girls and violated their human rights.
Now they are officially allowed to go to school again.
Still, many do not.
Often parents send their pregnant daughters away.
They are to live with the family of the boy they slept with.
The girls are not necessarily welcome there.
You have to work a lot and can no longer go to school.
Or they may or may not want to live with the strange family and have to get by on the street alone.
Or they are terribly ashamed because they are expecting a child - and everyone is pointing their finger at them.
We all need to learn to be better with one another.
The stigma of young pregnant women and young mothers must stop.
It's traumatizing.
A girl at my school once spread the rumor that I had been raped and had a child.
It was horrible.
I cried a lot because you all believed and I was considered defiled.
It was just a rumor and it had such an impact on me.
How does a girl have to feel who has really been raped?
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School friends on the way home together.
"Many parents only issue prohibitions and their daughters turn to their peers who are inexperienced themselves if they have any questions," says Mustapha
Photo:
COOPER INVEEN / REUTERS
There are many such questions that I ask myself a lot.
Why is it okay with us to get married and have a child as teenagers?
But not getting pregnant without getting married?
Why don't we explain to girls and boys how pregnancy comes about?
How important are condoms in order not to get pregnant and also not to get sick?
But for us it is not good to just point a finger at society.
Especially not if you are a young woman yourself.
I have therefore added passages from a man's guide and discussion questions after each chapter.
So everyone can see that it's not just my female point of view and talk about the topic themselves.
This is a fundamental problem in our society and something that I would like to change with the book: we don't talk to each other about the most important topics.
Young people have many questions when it comes to sexuality.
They want to know.
And they urgently need it.
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Life at the limit: A 15-year-old with her five-month-old child in Sierra Leone
Photo:
Olivier Asselin / UNICEF Sierra Leone
The government should introduce sex education classes in schools.
I also hope that parents will read my book and start having private conversations with their children.
Many only issue bans and their daughters turn to their peers who are inexperienced themselves with questions and to show off, tell made-up stories of great sex.
This is how the web of ignorance is tied further and further.
There are few women who can live independently in Sierra Leone.
Compared to men, they experience many things that limit or even threaten them.
This also includes pregnancies at a young age.
They mean the end of everything for girls.
Many girls have a lot of potential.
We lose this potential if we don't support women in good time.
We are limiting the future of our country if so many women do not get an education.
Teenage pregnancies are the cause of many other problems and we must work together to reduce the number.
I would love it if boys and men read the book and understand that they can destroy a girl's entire future - with just one meeting.
You need to be careful and develop an awareness of what your behavior can do.
Many girls are ensnared by men, often much older than them, via Facebook and WhatsApp chats.
They give compliments and are very friendly.
Then at some point they suggest a meeting, saying it's normal to have sex in order to give something back to the man.
There are many men who approach young women in this way and that is socially accepted.
The girls in my book talk about such advances.
Some let themselves be persuaded to have sex and feel bad afterwards.
You are alone with it.
But when a girl reads another girl's story like this, she understands that she is not really alone.
That many are like you.
And most importantly, that she can say no. "
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