On this International Day of the Girl Child, we here at Paper Crown Rwanda wanted to focus our attention on an issue that’s affecting young girls across the country: teenage pregnancy.
Teenage pregnancy is a burning issue right now in Rwanda, and it's a lot more complicated than some think. Which is why some comments by folks who don't understand the issue on a deeper level can be so harmful and misleading, even perpetuating the problem further. Take, for example, Miss Rwanda 2016 Jolly Mutesi tweeting a video of herself discussing the topic and telling young girls that “this is your concern more than it is anybody else’s concern,” to “negotiate from the boardroom, not the bedroom” and to “stop catching teenage pregnancies like the flu” by learning how to use condoms.
Ms Mutesi brings up some good points – girls do need to learn and understand different forms of contraception – but her input lacks a great deal of understanding of the nuance and complexities of this issue… not least because she puts the entire responsibility to avoid teenage pregnancies on girls alone.
There’s much more social context to understand about Rwanda’s teenage pregnancy issue, which is critical for us to discuss so that we can bring an end to the problem.
So let’s break it down.
Teenage Pregnancies in Rwanda: The Causes and the Stats
In recent years, Rwanda has been experiencing increasing rates of unwanted teenage pregnancy around the country, and yet research and evidence shows that harmful gender norms are a primary driver of teen pregnancy, if not the most critical driver of them all.
Harmful gender norms tell boys it’s okay to coerce girls into having sex, even when they repeatedly say no. They convince girls that they should be meek and mild and not stand up for themselves, risking their own sexual health and safety. They encourage boys to use emotional manipulation and threats to force girls into having unsafe sex, including the use of physical force to sexually assault girls or rape them. They also tell parents that girls are not to be trusted with knowledge of sex, but boys should be free to gather as much information as possible before they’re married. It’s a recipe for disastrous and unwanted outcomes for young girls.
Harmful gender norms and power dynamics between boys and girls, men and women, are the underlying cause of many, many issues in our society, and in Rwanda they reveal themselves fully in these stats from recent studies on Rwandan teen mothers:
87.7% of girls under the age of 18 in Rwanda reported their first experience of intercourse as being a result of sexual coercion.
Roughly 87% of girls report having no knowledge of sexual and reproductive health or rights (SRHR).
78% of girls report having no understanding of what constitutes sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV)
Girls’ understanding and knowledge of human rights and child rights is correspondingly (and alarmingly) low, at only 23% and 31%, respectively.
A 2016 assessment of ten districts in Rwanda with high rates of teen pregnancy revealed that 97% of adolescent girls and teen mothers require education on child rights, SRHR and SGBV
Not to mention in these quotes from group discussions with Rwandan teens:*
“Boys pretend they’re going to die if they don’t get sex, like they are sick or in pain, so because you care for them, you give in to make them feel better.”
- teen mothers, FGD*
“At the beginning you just flirt, but then it escalates. He will ask and you may escape once, but he will keep persisting until the girl just gives in."
- girl cohort, My Voice My Power
“It comes from when we are young – because our mothers teach us that, as a girl, if someone gives you something, then they will want sex from you, they will expect something in return.”
- girls, FGD *
"Most of the time, if you love someone, and they pressure you to have sex with them, you give in to it because you fear he will leave you and you don’t want to lose him."
- girl cohort, My Voice My Power
(*taken from focus group discussions with Rwandan adolescents in the CyberRwanda Analysis Report on Gendered Drivers and Barriers Around Teen Pregnancy, Safe Sex and HIV Prevention)
Harmful gender norms that lead to sexual coercion and sexual violence are at the heart of teenage pregnancies – so how do we fix the problem?
Money is often thrown at the problem of teen pregnancy without further exploring what is at the root of the issue. Programmes designed to teach girls about contraception are great, but until we also teach them that their worth in society is equal to that of men and boys, they won’t easily be able to use this information, or have the confidence to carry condoms, or set personal boundaries when it comes to sexual and romantic relationships. Instead of teaching girls they should be careful and fearful of boys, we should be teaching both sexes about the gendered power dynamics that have created the circumstances they’re in today.
Sexual coercion and sexual violence (rooted in gender norms) - alongside the dominant attitude that women and girls should be submissive to men and boys - are key drivers of unwanted teen pregnancy. These norms have to be critically and consistently addressed, and fundamentally transformed in the mindsets of both adolescent boys and girls, in order to sustainably eliminate SGBV, and reduce teen pregnancy caused by sexual coercion.
It starts with teaching girls about their rights, about sexual health, about boundaries, about gender, about violence, about confidence, and about leadership. It continues with teaching boys to recognise toxic masculinity and equipping them with the tools to dismantle it. And then it moves forward into long-term sustainable community change, led by these new youth activists themselves.
And that is the basis of our transformative new programme model, My Voice, My Power.
What is My Voice, My Power?
It’s a ground-breaking new program for teens in Rwanda that uses the framework above, and also has a brilliant new element: GESD.
What is GESD?
GESD is Girl Empowerment Self-Defence, a tried-and-tested holistic training methodology that provides violence resistance education, specifically designed for teenage girls. It focuses on self-confidence, assertiveness, boundary setting, verbalisation, de-escalation, negotiation, and physical self-defence tactics. This training helps girls to recognise, navigate, and exit potentially violent or risky situations as safely and as quickly as possible.
But let's make sure one thing is crystal clear - violence is never, ever the victim’s fault and GESD's core beliefs stand firmly against victim blaming. Paper Crown knows that social change needs to happen for violence to be prevented and eliminated in the long run - but transformative social change takes considerable time, and while boys and men must be addressed as the primary perpetrators of SGBV, and their mindsets must be permanently changed, we believe girls also have the right to learn behaviours and tactics here and now that can help them to better identify and respond to threats in the short term, threats that are still unfortunately a daily reality for them.
How can GESD and My Voice, My Power help lower the rate of teenage pregnancy in Rwanda?
My Voice, My power is so effective because it works on two fronts: it works to deeply and sustainably transform teenage mindsets about gender, while also empowering both boys and girls to become activists and champions for equality within their communities.
In Kenya, Malawi and other countries around the world, GESD has been academically evaluated and shown to significantly reduce rates of sexual assault, teen pregnancy, and school drop out due to teen pregnancy, and increase reporting of GBV - all of which are great things that we want to see! In fact, the Kenyan program alone has seen a 51% decrease in incidents of rape in their target communities, with 50% of trained girls stopping a rapist in the year after training, as well as a 46% decrease in teen pregnancy related school drop outs.
What can I do to help?
Today we’re sharing information on our Twitter and Instagram accounts – we’ve got a quiz for you to take, to see how much you know about the reality of teenage pregnancy in Rwanda, and help everyone learn more about it! Plus you can watch the girls from our My Voice, My Power project give their opinions on gender equality! Help us amplify their voices: share their experiences to your social media accounts and help us inform all of Rwanda about one of the most critical drivers of behind teen pregnancy.
If you work for an organisation that would be interested in partnering with us or fundraising to expand the ‘My Voice, My Power’ project across Rwanda and help lower the national rate of teenage pregnancy and sexual violence, then we want to talk to you! Please do email us right here.