PIGGS PEAK, Swaziland, Dec 30 (AFP) - A head teacher has ordered female pupils at Mhlatane High School in northern Swaziland to take a chastity pledge or face expulsion from school.
Michael Dlamini told AFP that all female pupils wanting to attend his school should take the "Umchwasho" chastity pledge for unmarried women under 23 and wear the woolen tassels, hanging from a headband, as a sign of their pledge.
"Every girl coming to Mhlatane High School must come with her woolen tassels or else get kicked out of the school," Dlamini said.
"Nobody will be registered without Umchwasho and those who do not have it, have enough time to buy one."
The school year in the tiny mountain kingdom, wedged between South Africa and Mozambique, begins on January 27.
No one at the education ministry could be reached for comment.
King Mswati III, the last absolute monarch in Africa, in September the reintroduction of the age-old Umchwasho tradition as a way of fighting the spread of AIDS, which has killed more than 50,000 out of a population of one million in the kingdom.
The king's eldest daughter, Princess Sikhanyiso Dlamini, 14, returned from boarding school in England over the Christmas holidays to help promote the chastity vow.
Few women have so far reportedly heeded the call.
Breaching the chastity vow before marriage incurs a penalty of one cow, or 1,300 emalangeni (108 dollars).
Mswati, 33, recently paid an ox after picking a new 17-year-old fiancee for himself.
Umchwasho requires girls up 18 to wear blue and yellow "don't touch me" woollen tassels, while young women 19 and older wear red and black tassels.
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