Central African Republic: Girls Prevented From Going to School in Refugee Camps

GIRLS from families who have fled the Central African Republic are being prevented from going to school, reports Plan International.

Girls make up a little more than one in three (38 per cent) of the 7,000 children in the charity's emergency education projects in Cameroon's refugee camps.

That is despite efforts to persuade parents to allow their daughters to attend.

Continuing instability in the Central African Republic (CAR) means hundreds of people are fleeing across the border into Cameroon every week, where there are now more than 200,000 refugees.

Plan has been conducting research at the Mbile and Ngam refugee sites to look at the attitudes and practices that are preventing girls' education.

Joel Ambebila, Plan's Disaster Risk Management Adviser in Cameroon, says: "Our research shows that parents would prefer their girls to marry rather than go to school.

"That's because women do not participate in decision-making when it comes to deciding who goes to school. There is also fear of the new environment.


"We will sensitise refugee communities on the importance of education, not just for children, but also for their wider families and communities," adds Mr Ambebila.

Ashiatou, aged 11, has never been to school. She made the treacherous journey from CAR to Cameroon with her uncle and two siblings.



"I have always wanted to go to school even when I was still with my mother in Central Africa," she says.

"There was a school in my village but I never attended because I had to help my mother sell in the market.

"I cry every time that I see my friends going to school without me, but I have to take care of my uncle because there is no-one else to do that," she adds.

Ashiatou's uncle, Abdou, says: "I think that she is too old to go to school. Girls have to be at home and learn how to take care of a home, so that by 15, they will be married."


More than 80 temporary learning spaces have been set up in the camps in Cameroon, but only 4,172 girls have signed up compared to more than 6,200 boys.

Plan is focusing on trying to get more of the girls who are being kept at home into school.

In CAR itself, armed attacks, robberies and car-jackings are continuing to destabilise the situation.

Ten people, including two children, were killed during an attack by an armed group near the border with Chad.

In CAR, Plan is helping provide emergency education to more than 8,000 children in Bangui, Mambare Kadei and Ouham provinces, many of whom have missed school as a result of the conflict.