Scholarships for Virgins?

From IOL, a South African news website (via Broadsheet) reports on a new program:

Schoolgirls who can prove they are virgins are being offered the chance to gain scholarships to university under a scheme launched in Sierra Leone on Monday to combat high rates of teenage pregnancy.

Girls from northern Biriwa will be eligible for the scholarships if they apply and pass a virginity test conducted by a community nurse, according to the Biriwa Youth Alliance for Development Organisation (BYADO).

There's a whole lot of wrong here: Submitting girls to virginity testing, which all you readers know reveals almost nothing about whether a girl has had intercourse or not, is just plain invasive.

And rewarding girls for staying virgins is a misguided way to combat teenage pregnancy, given the prevalence of sexual assault. It's another example of making girls solely responsible for what happens to them sexually (the guys are barely accountable in this equation) without giving them any tools to control their reproductive health.

The only mention of the boys:

For those bike riders who pregnates a girl student, their bikes will be confiscated, sold and the expenses go towards the upkeep of the baby.