WE ARE LOSING OUR GIRLS TO SILENCE AND POVERTY

A child with a baby is still a child. She still has rights. She still has the right to protection, to health, to education, to a childhood.

By Tshepho Thedi_  

Judicial Officer | LLM Candidate in Multidisciplinary Human Rights, University of Pretoria  

27 July 2026

GABORONE – I met her outside a traditional hut in a rural village. A baby was strapped to her back. Another child was growing inside her. 

She was still 15. At first I thought the baby was a younger sibling. Then I saw her face. Gentle, guarded, and far too old for her years. When I asked if she had been to school, she paused. Then she said five words that broke me: “I wanted to become a doctor.”

That was not a passing thought. That was a plan. She saw herself in a white coat, treating patients, building a different life. 

Today her classroom is a hut. Her exercise books are nappies. Her dream was traded for survival.

She was sent to buy traditional beer. She met an older man. His family had money. Her family had need. What started as “assistance” between households became a relationship. Then a pregnancy. Then the end of school.

No one asked if she understood what pregnancy meant. No one asked if she consented. The adults around her moved her through childbirth and into motherhood, as if that was the natural next step. This is not an isolated story. Across rural and remote communities in Botswana, this is the pattern we refuse to name.

Sometimes it is poverty. Sometimes it is an older man who can provide food. Sometimes it is a family arrangement that is normalized and never questioned. Sometimes it is silence — because no one ever told the girl she has the right to say no.

Let us be clear: culture gives us identity. But culture is not a license for exploitation. A child’s body is not currency for food. Her future is not a bargaining chip to settle household debt. A child with a baby is still a child. She still has rights. She still has the right to protection, to health, to education, to a childhood.

Botswana law is clear. A child is anyone under 18. The best interests of the child must come first in every decision. Children must be protected from sexual exploitation, abuse, and harmful practices. Education is a right, not a privilege.

These protections cannot stop at the police station or disappear at the cattle post. They cannot become optional because a family is poor. 

When an underage girl becomes pregnant, our first response must not be to hide it. It must be protection, medical care, a social worker, and a plan to get her back to school.

Poverty explains why families make desperate choices. But poverty must never be used to justify surrendering a child’s rights. In fact, that is when the state and community must step in with the most support.

We must reach girls before they drop out. Before pregnancy ends their education. Before an adult relationship becomes a life sentence. That means teachers, dikgosi, social workers, health workers, churches and parents speaking in one voice. It means telling every girl: Your body belongs to you. You have the right to say no. You have the right to report abuse. You have the right to stay in school.

And it means telling adults: A girl is not a woman because someone desires her. She is not ready for marriage because the household is struggling. She is not responsible for rescuing adults from poverty. Togelang makgela a butswe — let the fruit ripen before it is harvested.

I still think about that girl. The baby on her back. The second pregnancy. And that quiet smile when I asked if she would go back to school.Somewhere inside that young mother, the little girl who wanted to be a doctor may still exist. Her dream is wounded, but it does not have to be dead.

Our job is not to mourn the dreams we lost. Our job is to build a Botswana where the next girl is protected early enough to reach hers.

Judicial Officer Tshepho Thedi writes on how poverty, silence and normalized abuse are stealing Botswana’s girls. “Her classroom is a hut. Her exercise books are nappies. Her dream was traded for survival.”