Human rights and education for Gambian young women during COVID-19: Recommendations for social policy and practice

Introduction

In addition to being a worldwide health disaster, COVID-19 represents a human rights crisis that will affect the global community, particularly those of lower socioeconomic backgrounds and women (World Health Organization [WHO], 2020). As of July 2020, the pandemic has spread to over 16 million cases, reaching nearly 200 countries and causing over half a million deaths (BBC, 2020; Gupta, 2020). COVID-19 has closed borders, harmed economies globally, and caused a ‘crisis of social injustice, inequitably affecting vulnerable and marginalized populations’ (National Association of Social Workers [NASW], 2020). These challenges have shifted education in the Global South, impacting girls’ education in The Gambia and elsewhere. In this essay, we use our experience as human rights educators to describe a culturally responsive young women’s education program in The Gambia, and provide recommendations for policy and practice in the post-COVID-19 world.

Human rights

The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW, 2018) described social work as a profession built on human rights and involving the empowerment of all disadvantaged groups. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) outlines global minimum standards for education, noting in Article 26 that ‘everyone has the right to education’ (United Nations [UN], 2010). The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states that women should enjoy ‘all economic, social, and cultural rights’, including ‘the right to primary education . . . [which should be] available free to all’ (UN, 2010). COVID-19 disproportionately impacts the rights of women by limiting their educational opportunities and having the potential to reverse the gains made in gender equality (UN, 2020). Social workers have responded to COVID-19 by advocating for essential services and education (IFSW, 2020), and one organization engaging in educational empowerment for young women is The Girls’ Agenda (TGA).

Organizational description

TGA is a young women-led grassroots organization in The Gambia that champions the fundamental human rights of girls and young women. TGA works with communities to eliminate and make illegal human rights violations, including child marriage and genital mutilation, and to encourage all citizens to invest in girls’ education to reduce the gender gaps in education. While Gambian educational enrollment has been rising, gender disparities are pervasive (Gajigo, 2016; Kripak, 2018). Social workers, development professionals, and others engaged in humanitarian action at TGA are responding to the COVID-19 crisis through educational and social services that include the prevention of violence and abuse or other forms of human rights abuse against girls and young women.

Educational disparities

Since the WHO (2020) pronounced COVID-19 as a global pandemic, TGA (2020c) has redirected its advocacy work toward community awareness, mobilization of grassroots community advocates, and dissemination of messages on disease prevention and control. TGA paused activities requiring physical presence and shifted to engagement by social media, targeting youth, by creating audiovisual products that covered a wide range of COVID-19 topics, using youth-friendly platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Between March and June 2020, TGA’s online efforts reached over 200,000 people with engaging messages about COVID-19, with a greater focus on the precarity of the human rights of Gambian young women.

TGA strategically made the community aware of a gendered aspect to the pandemic at the end of March 2020 after providing an overview on COVID-19 prevention (TGA, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c) and this informed the organization’s campaign for the mitigation of the impact of the crisis on girls’ education. The Gambia’s educational sector is severely impacted by the crisis due to the fragile political and economic situation of the country. As children stay home from school, issues of access to the newly introduced remote learning via radio and television are challenging for disadvantaged groups such as girls, whose household chores can discourage them from watching TV, while children from poor households and rural communities without reliable sources of electricity face barriers to access. While TGA acknowledges the swift response of the government to ensure the educational continuity, there were few mitigation measures to address disparities caused by poverty and the disproportionate burden of domestic duties on girls and women. TGA raised awareness of such barriers, calling upon policymakers to improve strategies and ensure that girls are not disadvantaged in accessing virtual classes. At the same time, education on sexual abuse, child marriage, and genital mutilation remained essential work.

Policy and practice recommendations

The social and political implications of COVID-19 could reverse the gains made in girls’ education and the protection of rights, including access to sexual and reproductive health services, and protection from forced marriage. The implementation of four policy actions would mitigate the consequences of the pandemic on the education of girls and reinforce the resilience of the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) to respond to future crises.

First, a disaster risk-reduction contingency allocation in the MoBSE’s budget is needed in order to respond to the social costs of COVID-19 and other disasters. This funding should be invested in education infrastructure, including learning technologies such as computers and sustainable energy that can support educational continuity, especially in disadvantaged and remotely located communities. In these communities, social workers are already responding to social issues stemming from COVID-19. Working with local leaders to educate the community about the value of educational continuity for young women during COVID-19 should be a key social work intervention.

Second, the MoBSE should consider the implications of the pandemic on children through participatory and consultative information collection. This should result in the implementation of post-COVID-19 gender-inclusive and child-centered social protection policies that can protect girls from trauma due to prolonged school withdrawal. Social workers should advocate for policies that enable girls and young women to take advantage of compulsory universal education, free from trauma and abuse. Working with other essential workers such as teachers, legal practitioners, women leaders, and groups can amplify the implementation, enforcement, and monitoring of social protection policies and measures. Reports of such interventions should be documented and shared with policymakers for improvement and continuity.

Third, when the lockdown ends, the MoBSE should consider community consultation through its provincial offices to dialogue with families about the importance of their daughters’ education and find community solutions to address the reluctance to send girls back to school. This intervention is exceptionally relevant where economic downturns could make parents prioritize sons as future ‘breadwinners’, and is an opportunity to address the vulnerability of girls to forced marriage as a coping strategy for their families both economically and socially. At community organizations such as TGA, social workers can be involved in educating families about the economic advantages young women can bring to families when they are free to pursue education and careers. In the global economy, young women who can pursue education and careers that provide considerable support to their families and communities and social workers should present these advantages to the community. Partnering with familiar and successful local female breadwinners, role models, and leaders known to these parents and communities would be advantageous. Both community mobilization and media activities can be helpful forms of outreach during this time.

Finally, as entrepreneurial leadership supporting education as a human right helps improve the welfare of societies, so can social entrepreneurship play a role in addressing long-standing social problems (Abu-Saifan, 2012; Zahra et al., 2008). As such, in order to provide services to meet community needs, such as girls’ online access to education, policymakers must consider supporting social entrepreneurs. Social workers can be partners in envisioning and implementing women-led social enterprises. The government should fund women-led social enterprises, including paid social work positions within these organizations, which would contribute to longer term empowerment and equality (Huysentruyt, 2014). The occurrence of COVID-19 is an opportunity to bring about these long-needed social reforms which have the potential for improving the economic status of women and other marginalized groups and create a new network of changemakers.

Summary

Restrictions to combat COVID-19 are further impacting the educational disparities of girls and young women during the pandemic in The Gambia. This article identifies human rights challenges during COVID-19 which provide improved understanding of both current social policy and practice, and identifies the necessary changes that need to be made. Social work and educational collaborations are invaluable strategies for increasing educational access.