Guinea mother: I have passed my exams 30 minutes after childbirth

An 18-year-old student who was taken to hospital from an examination room told the BBC that she was coming back to complete her tests 30 minutes after delivery.

"I decided myself to finish my baccalaureate," says Fatoumata Kourouma.

She went to the exam room in the Guinean city of Mamou on Tuesday morning, but the staff sent her to the hospital.

"I had started having a stomach ache Monday night but I did not know I was going to give birth," she told AFP.

"I had the courage to do the exam the next day, without saying anything to my husband or to the school," she added.

"I was afraid they would ask me to stay at home or to see a doctor."

It was not until she arrived at the hospital that she understood that she was about to give birth. And when her baby boy was born after a quick job, she handed it to her parents so that she could finish her bachelor's degree in physics and French.

"The session had already started but the supervisors allowed me to go back," Kourouma told the BBC, adding that she was feeling well at the time and that she was not suffering not.

She says that she and her son are both healthy. A family member told the AFP news agency that her husband, a police corporal, was delighted and told everyone who would like to hear about "this wonderful woman".

In Guinea, one in three women gives birth at the age of 18, according to Unicef, a UN agency for the protection of children.

It's also one of 18 African countries that do not have any laws or policies to keep pregnant girls or teenage mothers in school, according to a recent Human Rights report. Watch.

Life is even harder for girls in countries like Tanzania and Sierra Leone, where they are fired from school under government policy.

But there are laws protecting the right of pregnant girls to stay in school or return to education in Nigeria, Benin and DR Congo, among others.