The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day (#IWD2022) is #BreakTheBias, a call to critically evaluate the gender biases in their own lives and a call for action for the world to come together to break down these biases. We at Paper Crown Rwanda would like to utilize our expertise on the Rwandan context to shed light on some of the specific and unique challenges that adolescent girls in our country face, and how Gender Transformative Approaches can help to overcome these challenges.
An adolescent girl living in Rwanda, especially one living in poverty, faces unique, intersectional challenges in her community which severely hinder her ability to realize her full potential, enjoy her rights, and ensure a healthy, prosperous future for herself, her family, and her community. Many of the challenges girls in Rwanda face are directly linked to gender inequality and structural barriers, propped up by harmful gender norms.
Rwandan gender biases perpetuate the idea that men are generally superior to women. From a young age, girls and boys in Rwanda are prepared to fulfill socially expected gender roles as adults, where women are meant to become wives, mothers, and caregivers in the domestic realm, while men take on the roles of leaders, decision makers, and economic providers. Despite government efforts to encourage girls to study, gender norms still enforce a system which prioritizes boys’ education, and in which many girls don’t get a chance to complete secondary school due to many hours spent daily on unpaid care work, affecting their performance at school and leading to school dropouts.
Harmful gender norms are also a root cause of issues such as SGBV and the rising rates of high rates of unwanted teen pregnancy driven by sexual coercion and sexual violence—which are also violations of child and human rights, as well as SRHR. According to recent studies of Rwandan teen mothers, 87.7% of girls under the age of 18 report their first experience of intercourse as being a result of sexual coercion. 87% of girls also report having no knowledge of SRHR, and 78% of girls report having no knowledge of SGBV. In addition, a 2016 assessment of ten districts across all five provinces in Rwanda with high rates of teen pregnancy revealed that 97% of adolescent girls and teen mothers require in-depth education on human rights, SRHR, and SGBV.
Adolescent girls also face violence in their families and communities: an alarming 24% of adolescent girls aged 15-19 and 28% of young women aged 20-24 in Rwanda have experienced violence at least once since the age of 15. Additionally, the latest Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), a nationally representative study, revealed that 45% of girls aged 15-19 and 42% of young women aged 20-24 believe that a husband is justified in beating his wife for at least one or more of six common scenarios in the Rwandan context, including burning the food, arguing with him, or refusing to have sex with him.
My Voice, My Power (MVMP) is our flagship program using a transformative, youth-led approach to tackling SGBV in Rwanda by addressing the harmful gender norms which are a root cause of violence, to achieve meaningful gender equality, prevent GBV, and ensure that girls can fully enjoy their rights. (Photo taken 03 November 2021)
Harmful gender biases and norms which normalize and justify (sexual) violence not only directly cause these issues, but are also the barriers to preventing and responding to them. Social stigma and victim blaming associated with adolescent girls being sexually active largely prevents them from accessing safe and accurate SRHR information, SRHR products and services, or those who have experience violence to reporting their attackers.
By transforming social norms and addressing unequal power dynamics between adolescent girls and boys as well as their parents, we provide a holistic community-based solution that will help us to achieve meaningful gender equality, prevent GBV, and ensure that girls can fully enjoy their rights.
There is an urgent demand for work that critically addresses and fundamentally transforms the mindsets of both boys and girls, in order to bring about the sustainable elimination of SGBV and to reduce unwanted teen pregnancy. Further, there is a critical need to invest in SRHR education that uses a holistic, gender transformative lens, to equip adolescent boys and girls with the information and understanding they need to make safe, respectful, consensual, and informed choices about their sexual and reproductive health, and further contribute to reductions in SGBV.
Our unique transformational approach is crucial for widespread, sustainable social impact that stands the test of time for three key reasons. Firstly, gender-development work is notoriously underfunded on a global scale, and many “gender projects” focus on symptomatic issues rather than holistic normative change that fundamentally transforms the root drivers of these issues. Secondly, most of what we believe about gender roles is internalized and solidified when we are young. Adolescence offers a unique window of time where we can be meaningfully influenced to reevaluate our harmful beliefs, behaviours, and attitudes related to gender. Thirdly, without deep-rooted normative change targeting youth, the intergenerational cycle of gender discrimination and violence will most certainly continue, with limited progress being made that will risk backsliding over time as social power dynamics shift.
If you’re interested in learning more about PCR’s projects, or if you're interested in partnering with us, please reach out to info@paper-crown.org.