* Lecturer, Institute of Languages and Cultural Studies, Njala University, Bo Sierra Leone
** Department of Sociology and Social Work, Njala University, Bo Sierra Leone
*** Capital Express and Insurance Trust, Bo Sierra Leone
Online published on 25 October, 2016.
According to the state of the World children 2009 report, the younger a girl get pregnant, the greater the health risks for her and her infant. Worldwide, more than 60 million women who are currently aged 20–24 were married before 18 years; most child marriages are in South Asia and Africa. Abortion and dropout from school are two-words and when defined separately could lead to a lucid understanding of the terminologies. Abortion and dropout. Abortion can be defined as a teenaged or underage girl (usually within the ages of 13–19 years) who do terminate their child when they get pregnant. The term in every day speech usually refers to women who have not reached legal adulthood, which varies across the world.
Over 40% of girls, now between the ages of 15 and 19 get complication and 12% of them die, (2010 government demographic health survey (DHS) in Sierra Leone). Most girls drop-out of school age 19 face a lots of problems. Boys tend to drop-out by age 16, Child protection experts speculate these pregnancies are caused by voluntary sexual relations among school children, early marriages, transactional sex with adult and other forms of sexual abuse, but UNICEF Fonteyn told Irin Africa-Sierra Leone, no studies have yet been undertaken. Despite this knowledge, not much research is on-record relating to the assessment of abortion and its impact on girl child education in Sierra Leone taken Manjama Community in Bo City as the case study. In view of the above mentioned a critical study of the impact or effect of abortion on the rate of drop-out is worth undertaking.
