Multiple vulnerabilities of adolescent girls

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Multiple vulnerabilities of adolescent girls

• Richard Mabala (TAMASHA)
• Presented to the Global Partners Forum
• Dublin October 2008

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Vulnerability factors

• Insufficient attention paid to vulnerability to
• Poverty and orphanhood the most common factors,
  followed by early marriage and lack of education,
  and rape, unwanted or early pregnancy, drugs and
  unemployment and abortion and rusha roho.
• One surprising finding was the high prevalence of
  early marriage, which is more usually associated
  with rural areas. In Azimio. 27 of girls married
  before 20, either forced by parents who need the
  money, or decide themselves to escape poverty or
  because they cannot continue in school
• But early marriage only increases their
  vulnerability. Too young so they fail to settle
  down, which leads to early divorce or abandonment
  and loss of all support ? forced into sex work to
  look after themselves and their children. Often
  victims of gender based violence. Beaten and
  given little money to run the household dangers
  of early pregnancy
• Not a single mtaa mentioned AIDS as a key
  vulnerability factor. AIDS, for them, is the
  outcome of other vulnerability factors, not the
  factor itself.
• Lack of education. Far fewer girls in Temeke
  were in secondary school 10 were already working
  by the age of 15. The research did not have time
  to investigate in detail but the incidence of
  brothels and child prostitution seemed to be
  significantly higher in Azimio as well.
• Migration. The FGDs with the girls who have
  moved into an area showed that they were
  subjected to even higher levels of harassment
  with even greater impunity for the men involved
  as the girls do not know them.

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Sex

• Early sexual debut. In primary school, or if
  very determined to delay, just after primary
  school. Orphans particularly vulnerable.
• Strong peer pressure to have sex but know nothing
  about how to protect themselves or even about
  their menstrual cycle. No education in schools
• Sex for money ? multiple partners to get all they
  want. Prefer older men (ATMs) But girls
  recognised that they are cheated for very little
  money . Older women with boys also commonExposed
  to STIs and do not know where or how to treat
  them ? spread to others.
• Pregnancy common . The father usually runs away,
  denies he is the father or says that he is too
  young to be a father. Sometimes offers money to
  the girl to abort.
• Pregnancy often leads to loss of opportunities,
  ending in sex work
• Abortion common if girl is still a student or
  father refuses the baby or because she was forced
  to get married. Backstreet abortions.
• If the girl has the baby, she has tough life,
  bringing up the baby on her own with no support.
• She often faces difficulties giving birth because
  she is weak, suffering from anaemia etc

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Sexual violence

• Sexual violence and the fear of sexual violence
  is a constant factor. All the girls were aware
  of the possibility of sexual violence against
  them, which determined even their reactions to
  the continual propositions being made to them.
• Rape is a common occurrence, around their homes,
  at school and in places of recreation (rusha
  roho, beach)
• Girls who dance too sexily, or wear short skirts
  (even in the sea), or object to kubaashia, or
  refuse men too assertively, even those who attend
  a Rusha Roho far from home or go without a male
  partner to Rusha Roho or beach are in danger of
  being raped. At the beach, even wearing short
  skirts in the sea

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Orphanhood

• Orphans are being seriously mistreated by their
  relatives. Relatives dont care for the orphans
  so they are forced out to live a life on the
  streets where they take drugs (boys) and become
  sex workers (girls) 75 of the underage girls
  engaged in sex work in Temeke were orphans.
• Orphans are taken out of school and made to work
  for their relatives. Can even be forced into sex
  work (by aunt)
• Orphans do not get their basic necessities and
  are forced into transactional sex to get them.
  Despite the lack of other alternatives, still
  seen as tamaa.
• Where there was an orphanage, it does not benefit
  the orphans themselves but rather the people who
  own and run it
• Far less attention has been paid to the
  phenomenon of divorce/separation and step parents
  on the children. The remaining sex workers
  interviewed in Temeke all came from broken
  homes where children are subjected to
  step-parenthood.
• Treatment of orphans and social orphans has
  important implications for any social
  protection programme which looks only at the
  household unit and not the specific needs of the
  orphans themselves.
• Maybe there is a need to pay much more attention
  to how the orphans can be supported by their
  peers through youth programmes with adolescents

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whatever path we follow we are propositioned by
all kinds of men. Movement and vulnerability
(distance)

• Girls vulnerable outside the house, whether
  walking or going by public transport. Permanent
  propositioning wherever they want to go.
  Compounded by unwanted touching. If they
  complain they are insulted, or punished by rape
  
• Thus distance from school and commercial areas
  could be a key vulnerability factor which can put
  better off girls more at risk because more likely
  to attend schools further away from home, and
  commercial services such as markets may not be
  situated so close to their homes).
• Many girls accept propositions of bus
  conductors/drivers because of the transport
  situation caused by differential bus fares.
  Students often have to wait for hours at the bus
  stop and return home way into the night, which
  makes them vulnerable in the dark streets around
  their houses. Other girls save their bus fare
  money to be able to buy some simple food at
  school.
• Thus, in the better off areas, girls are more
  vulnerable because of the need to travel whereas
  in the poorer areas, girls take conductors as
  boyfriends to save bus fares and get extra money.

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Lessons learned

• Magnitude and multiple causes of vulnerability
  facing girls Any man, anywhere is justified in
  propositioning any girl, and the onus is on the
  girl to negotiate her way out of it without being
  raped.
• Men take advantage of their positions and are
  protected by a system which allows them to act
  with impunity. No action is taken against them.
  On the contrary they have the right to punish
  girls who misbehave.
• Where traditional and religious norms have broken
  down, where community ties are also weak, in
  particular for in-migrants, a vacuum has been
  created which has been taken over by a
  patriarchal system which allows men to do as they
  please.
• Girls are not prepared in any way to cope with
  this situation. There are no life skills in
  school, no preparation for this or support from
  adults ? not surprising that they start having
  sex at an early age
• The situation of the girls makes it easy for the
  men
• Very poor ? accept offers
• Peer pressure to have nice things, and can see
  how others change their lives
• Have internalised and accepted the patriarchal
  sytem and resolve to use their wits and charms
  to play the game of life, believing that they can
  win
• They do not see their rights are being violated
  but rather blame their fellow girls who fail
  instead of questioning the rules of the game. It
  is their tamaa.

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Childrens/womens rights as prevention strategy

• So, as girls enter puberty, they enter a zone
  where their rights are not recognised at all.
  They can be married off, propositioned,
  threatened, humiliated, raped, even gang raped
  with impunity.
• Thus, if vulnerability of adolescent girls is to
  be addressed, thereby reducing the likelihood of
  HIV infection, the circumstances in which these
  girls have to navigate their puberty have to be
  addressed.
• The impunity of the men has to be challenged
• Communities have to accept that there should be
  protective and supportive mechanisms to enable
  these girls to navigate their puberty
  successfully within the context of their human
  rights.
• There has to be a community recognition (not just
  a distant Sexual Offences Act) that sex below a
  certain age is unacceptable whatever the
  circumstances.
• This can only be achieved through a large scale,
  participatory community advocacy and education
  programme together with a programme of life
  skills for both the girls and the boys to enable
  them to understand themselves and one another and
  develop their own protective mechanisms.
• Youth groups are key to this educators and
  protectors