Kenya’s Surprise Proposal For Girl’s Education

1. The global challenge of keeping girls in school is a formidable one. In Kenya a parent who fails to educate his child faces possible imprisonment. Reality is that child marriages are common among Kenya’s pastoral community, with poor Maasai fathers receiving nine cattle in exchange for each of their daughters. Once married, young girls are no longer educated.

Laikipia Governor Joshua Irungu believes he has a solution, with the government providing fathers with the nine cows so that their daughters can stay in school. To insure that the project is sustainable, Governor Irungu intends to launch a livestock breeding center in Laikipia. via BBC

Textbook Censorship in Arizona

2. An Arizona school district, under pressure from a conservative Christian organization, Alliance Defending Freedom, has bowed to pressure regarding the mention of the morning-after pill and mifepristone in the seventh edition of Campbell Biology: Concepts and Connections.

The Gilbert Public Schools’ governing board voted 3-2 to redact the pages in question and under the threat of a lawsuit. Members of the board contended that the pages violate a state statute, which prevents school districts from providing instruction that “that does not give preference, encouragement and support to childbirth and adoption as preferred options to elective abortion,” says the outlet. via Huffington Post

American parents overwhelmingly support comprehensive, medically accurate sex education that includes information about abstinence and contraception, STDs and disease prevention. Even in Texas, 90% of adults favor sex education that is comprehensive.

In Nigeria, Child Marriage Under Debate

3. The trial of 14-year-old Wasila Tasi’u, who is accused of murdering her 35-year-old husband with rat poison has sparked a debate about child marriage in Nigeria. As Nigerian prosecutors in Gezawra seek the death penalty in the case, child brides are front and center in public debate in the poor, conservative Muslim region located in the north country.

The defendant’s parents have condemned their daughter’s actions, while activists in Nigeria’s Christian south have called for her immediate release and rehabilitation. Her trial will resume on November 26. via The Guardian

Malala Rebuilds Schools in Gaza

Malala Yousafzai receives the World’s Children’s Prize from Queen Silvia of Sweden on Oct. 29, 2014 (Photo: Reuters/Anders Wiklund)4. Malala Yousafzai, the now famous Pakistani girl awarded the nobel Peace Prize this year, has donated $50,000 — all the proceeds from the World’s Children Prize — to rebuilding United Nations-run schools in Gaza, damaged during the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflicts.Malala is the first child to receive the award.