背景介绍：
津巴布韦有着两套婚姻法，《婚姻法》和《习惯婚姻法》，这两部法律都没有规定结婚的最低年龄，而《习惯婚姻法》甚至还允许一夫多妻。正是由于特殊的国情和社会习俗，津巴布韦的童婚现象十分普遍，未成年女孩一旦怀孕，往往只能被迫辍学，从此失去受教育的机会。Have baby, stay in schoolWhy teenage mothers in Zimbabwe
struggle to get educatedBrilliant Ndlovu has never really known
childhood. Since the age of seven she has headed her household in Tsholotsho, a
town in rural western Zimbabwe, after her parents went to work abroad. The
oldest of five, she scraped a living growing crops while trying to keep up with
her schoolwork. 聪明的恩德洛夫从未真正经历过童年。自从7岁起，她的父母去国外工作后，她就一直在津巴布韦西部乡村小镇茨洛特肖主持家务。她是五个孩子中的老大，一边靠种庄稼勉强糊口，一边还要努力完成学业。But in 2020 the covid-19 pandemic struck, coming shortly after a devastating drought. Farmers could not afford to pay child labourers like Ms Ndlovu. “So I looked for a man to help support my family,” she recalls. She found one who demanded sex in exchange for money. Aged 17, she got pregnant.但在2020年，经历一场毁灭性的干旱后，新冠疫情又紧随其后。农民负担不起像恩德洛夫这样的童工。她回忆说：“所以我找了一个男人来帮我养家。”她找了一个要求以身体换取金钱的人。17岁时，她怀孕了。Ms Ndlovu was one of 4,770 Zimbabwean
girls to drop out of school in 2020 because of pregnancy, up from about 3,000
the year before, according to government statistics. The true number may be
higher. 政府统计数据显示，2020年，有4770名津巴布韦女孩因怀孕而辍学，恩德洛夫是其中之一，而前一年约有3000人。真实的数字可能更高。Siqinisweyinkosi Mhlanga, who runs Orphan’s Friend, a community centre in Tsholotsho where Ms Ndlovu now spends her days, says that there may be ten times more school dropouts in her province than the official tally. 恩德洛夫所在茨洛特肖小镇的社区中心“孤儿之友”的负责人西钦尼斯韦因因科西·姆兰加说，在她所在的省份，因怀孕导致辍学的女孩人数可能是官方统计数字的十倍。In August 2020 Zimbabwe’s government amended the Education Act to prohibit schools from expelling pregnant girls, joining a growing club of African countries that are letting pregnant teenagers continue with their education. A third of Zimbabwean women marry before they are 18.2020年8月，津巴布韦政府修订了《教育法》，禁止学校开除怀孕女孩，加入了越来越多允许怀孕少女继续接受教育的非洲国家行列。津巴布韦三分之一的女性会在18岁之前结婚。Previously Zimbabwe’s education minister
had described student pregnancy as a “misdemeanour of a serious nature”,
punishable by expulsion. But the amendment “didn’t make any difference”, says
Ms Mhlanga. In 2021, after teenage pregnancies rose during the covid lockdown,
the number of pregnancy-related dropouts rose to 5,985, according to official
statistics.此前，津巴布韦教育部长曾将学生怀孕描述为“性质严重的不端行为”，可被开除学籍。但姆兰加表示，修正案“并没有起到任何作用”。官方统计数据显示，2021年，在疫情封锁期间少女怀孕人数增加后，因怀孕所致辍学人数上升至5985人。Stigma and cost, rather than laws, push
girls out of school. When they fall pregnant their families often “don’t accept
that girls can excel”, says Samkeliso Tshuma, the founder of The Girls Table,
an NGO in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, that promotes girls’ rights. Most
girls drop out of school before teachers even know they are pregnant.促使女孩辍学的是耻辱和成本，而不是法律。津巴布韦第二大城市布拉瓦约一个致力于促进女孩权利的非政府组织“女孩之桌”的创始人萨姆凯利索·茨胡马，当女孩们怀孕时，她们的家人通常“不接受女孩在学习上出类拔萃”。大多数女孩甚至在老师知道她们怀孕之前就辍学了。The minority who persevere soon run into
other barriers. When a girl called Happiness became pregnant at 15, she told
her parents: “I’m not stopping school.” They supported her until she failed her
exams, a month after giving birth. They didn’t have enough money to pay for her
to resit them, so she lost the chance to get the highest school-leaving
certificate which would have qualified her for entry to a university.少数坚持下来的人很快就会遇到其他障碍。当一个名叫“幸福”的女孩在15岁怀孕时，她告诉她的父母：“我不会辍学回家。”家人们一直支持她，直到她生下孩子一个月后考试不及格。他们没有多的钱供她上学了，所以她失去了获得高中毕业证书的机会，而这本证书本可以使她有资格进入大学。The average rural household spends $3.23 a
month on education. For Zimbabweans living below the poverty line (38% of them
in 2019, up from 23% in 2011), that is quite a chunk of their income. 农村家庭平均每月的教育支出为3.23美元。对于生活在贫困线以下的津巴布韦人（2019年占比38%，高于2011年的23%），这是他们收入的相当大一部分。In the first half of this year more than half of children were turned away from school because of non-payment of fees. Pregnant girls are often the first to lose out. And school can be a hostile place for them. Some complain that boys tease them, saying they smell of milk.今年上半年，一半以上的儿童因为交不起学费而无法上学。怀孕的女孩往往是首当其冲的受害者。学校对她们来说是一个充满敌意的地方。一些人抱怨称，男孩们总喜欢取笑她们，说她们身上有牛奶的味道。(红色标注词为重难点词汇)
重难点词汇：
devastate [ˈdevəsteɪt] v. 摧毁；破坏；毁灭
drop out of 退出；辍学；不参与
amendment [əˈmendmənt] n. 修订；改善；修正案
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