Interview with Faith Macharia, National Director of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), Kenya Chapter

© FAWE

The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) is a pan-African non-governmental organization founded in 1992 to promote girls’ and women’s education in sub-Saharan Africa in line with the Millennium Goal of Education for All. With headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, FAWE has a network of national chapters in 32 countries.

QUeLA: What would you say are the main factors that prevent females from participating in education? Based upon your experience, can you explain why this exclusion occurs?

Faith Macharia: The factors affecting the situation of girls and women, which include those affecting their ability to participate in education, are many and various. Among them are poverty, cultural beliefs and practises such as early marriage, female circumcision, HIV/AIDS, fathers who are not willing to pay for their daughters’ education as they feel it not important, child labour, gender-based violence, and sexual abuse, to name a but few.

Exclusion from formal education is also a result of extreme poverty, especially among African women, most of who have no source of income and are wholly dependent on their husbands. There is also a lot of polygamy and extramarital affairs, practised by men with impunity. Women are easily sent away from their homes by their husbands with no support for their children, and to add to this, they cannot afford to seek legal redress. Girls’ education is not given priority due to the cultural belief that girls are meant for marriage, to bring dowry to the home. (leer más…)

Fuente: [e-learning africa]

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