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Multiple vulnerabilities of adolescent girls

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Title: Multiple vulnerabilities of adolescent girls


1
Multiple vulnerabilities of adolescent girls
  • Richard Mabala (TAMASHA)
  • Presented to the Global Partners Forum
  • Dublin October 2008

2
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.

3
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

4
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

5
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

6
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.

7
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.

8
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
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