By Ali Abdi

It is a rare case that illustrates extreme consequences of forced marriage of underage girls in parts of Northern Kenya.

A school has defied education rules to fight this culture that deprives hundreds of young girls a chance to get an education.

The school has allowed a girl, who was recently forced into marriage, then divorced, to return to class, with her baby.

It is a rare case that has been drawing crusaders of girl child rights in Isiolo region to the school to support the girl and to use her case as an example to why forced marriage should be fought by all means.

Girl child rights activist Muslima Gababo baby-sits while the mother-pupil is in class.

While other pupils at a school, in Garba Tulla District, dash out of class to play, the Standard Eight girl moves to a shade of an acacia tree to breastfeed her baby.

When the frail, young mother-pupil is through, she walks back to class, cuddling her baby-girl, aged eight months, and sits on her desk for a mathematics or another lesson.

Halima Roba, 16, (not her real name) is an odd pupil at the primary school but fellow pupils and teachers have learnt to accept her, even help her with baby sitting.

The bright Standard Eight pupil had been married off unwillingly after an elders’ kangaroo court ruled it was the only option for her when she was made pregnant by a man who tricked her into a sexual encounter.

Her protestations that she did not want to get married but wanted to continue schooling, fell on deaf ears as the elders, who arbitrate in cases of pre-marital pregnancy, told her it would be an embarrassment to her clan if she tried to give birth outside wedlock.

But the man who married her later divorced her even before she gave birth.

However, her resolve to get an education, which had been cut short by the forced marriage, saw her return and get accepted to her former school.

The school administration waived rules and allowed her to attend classes with her baby.

Her teachers were told by the school administration it was important to help her complete her education. At times some teachers help her cuddle the baby when it cries in class. Through the school day, the baby could change hands from Halima, other pupils and the class teacher. A girl child’s rights activist often shows up at the school to help in baby sitting while the young mother reads.

Halima is among hundreds of children of nomadic communities who are victims of child abuse that include sexual exploitation, early marriage, divorce and denial of an education.

But unlike many who never make an effort to go back to class, Halima, despite her predicament and the stigma that goes with it, made a rare move in this region where girl child rights are widely trampled on.

The head teacher Mr Mohammed Adiyo says he learnt that Halima, then in Standard Seven, was pregnant last October 16.

"We learnt that the pupil, one of the best academically was pregnant.

She confessed to her mother and pleaded to be allowed back to school," Adiyo said recently at the school.

The culprit (name withheld) is a young man who is an accounts student at a Nairobi college. Those interviewed said he comes from a relatively wealthy and influential family who ganged up and frustrated Halima’s mother from seeking justice.

The head teacher told officials of Action-Aid’s Sericho Development Initiative and Sauti Ya Akina Mama officials that the school management committee thereafter wrote a letter to Garba-Tulla District Education Officer through his assistant based at the Sericho divisional headquarters of Modogashe.

On the same date, the Parents-Teachers Association (PTA) and the pupil herself wrote a complaint letter to the police and District Officer of Modogashe, about 100km away.

The nursing girl on the left, and fellow pupils are taught by a teacher. Photos: Ali Abdi/Standard

Last December, after learning that the complaint had reached the authorities, the boy’s clan elders met the girl’s clan to negotiate a settlement. Halima who has no father appeared before the elders’ kangaroo court who resolved that she be married after the young man agreed he was responsible for her pregnancy. Sauti Ya Kina Mama, a community-based organisation based in Sericho division, said the girl was accused of giving in to the ‘pleasures of sex’ and told to be contented with marriage.

Halima says she was escorted by the man’s relatives to his family home. But after a few days, the man vanished and his relatives told Halima to return to her mother, which she obliged. The girl gave birth on January 25.

Halima said, "He abandoned me the same month and vowed to divorce me. I decided I was going back to school,’’ said the soft spoken girl. Despite the odds and unlike other girl-children from pastoralist communities who are forced into marriage, Halima soldiered on.

"Carrying a malnourished child on her back, Halima pleaded that she be re-admitted back to school. I gladly received her back as education is her right," said Adiyo. The school was faced with a challenge of how to cope with pupil-mother and baby in the classroom but they decided to make a case against cultural abuse of girls, he says.