Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the veracity of reports that the Commissioner of the Mwanza region of Tanzania, John Mongella, has called for pregnant school girls to be arrested and forced to testify against the persons who impregnated them in court.

We are aware of comments made by the Regional Commissioner. The former Minister for Africa, Rory Stewart OBE, raised his concerns about access to education and training for pregnant teenage women with the Government of Tanzania when he visited Dar es Salaam in August last year. Along with international partners, we regularly raise our concerns with the Tanzanian Government, for example as recently as 8 January when the Head of DFID met with the Minister of Education specifically on this issue.