con el buen vivir, la agroecología
MARCO TEÓRICO
As noted above, while informal socio-cultural rules either provide or shut down the space needed for girls to develop and exercise personal empowerment and self-efficacy, real-life often veers away from the ideal (for better or for worse) during the course of adolescence. Young adolescence is a critical
phase in the life course – a time of complex physical, intellectual, social and psychological needs. Adolescent girls in Rwanda have little control over their own lives. They are at risk of experiencing negative health outcomes due to a combination of social, economic and sexual pressures.55 Many girls have been subjected to some form of physical abuse by 15 years of age.56 This makes them a high-risk group for early sexual debut and pregnancy, maternal mortality and HIV infection. In our quantitative sample, 18% of girls aged 16 – 19 were already parents (as compared to only 7% of boys).
Girls continually suffer severe blows to their self–esteem, from parents, boys and especially sexual predators, commonly referred to as “sugar daddies”.57 Economic hardship can encourage girls to seek out older partners with money to buy material goods, to pay for their school fees, or to secure a job.58 Girls who face additional pressures, for example stigma related to their extreme poverty or orphaned status, face additional challenges to self-esteem. As a consequence, many girls socially isolate themselves, which impedes their psycho–social development.
Personal empowerment and self-efficacy is about the ability of adolescent girls to exercise voice, influence and agency in order to both access livelihood assets, services and capabilities, and change the rules of the game in their favour.
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The message that a boy’s life is in their own hands (boys have agency) and girls’ life is in the hands of
others (not only do they not have agency, but they have little voice or influence either) was a theme
repeated often in discussions about dreams and future plans. The comment in Box 4 could have come from either girls, or boys, and from any of the age cohorts with whom the research was conducted.
It is clear that parents’ own sense of personal empowerment and self- efficacy have a huge influence on these capabilities in their children.
While both mothers, and their daughters, expressed this feeling of being alone, women feel that “if you do not struggle for yourself, you cannot survive,” whereas girls feel a distinct lack of agency, and the ability to achieve anything on their own.
Not surprisingly, girls’ self-efficacy also seems to be linked to the economic and social well-being of the
household. For girls, having a mother, or female carer, at home was particularly important in terms of
exercising voice, influence and agency (see Box 5, below). Box 4
Girls face many challenges like early marriages or unwanted pregnancies and most girls don’t plan or make their own decisions on what they want to do because they have other expectations in mind, like they are waiting for somebody to appear from nowhere and marry them to help solve their problems. For us boys we make our own decisions in life because we do not have a choice. Our future lives lie in our hands and depend very much on how good we make our decisions.
- Out-of-school boy, Karongi
While women struggle, and girls hope, both suffer from a lack of personal empowerment and a sense of self-efficacy.
Box 5
I talk together with my grand-daughters about what to do with the money they earn from cultivating. They make good decisions. I just guide them…
- Grandmother and guardian, Bugesera Normally, boys are taught life skills by fathers and girls by their mothers and aunts. Girls without a mother find it hard. I am fortunate as a single father than I only have sons.
-Father, Rwamagana I discuss with them [my daughters] about the future though I am not able to help them to bring their dreams true because of lack of means.
- Widow, Nyabihu Both of us [she and her husband] advise them [children] and follow closely their schooling but they will decide on the long run on what they want to major in. This will be based also on their performance in school...I will support my kids to achieve their dreams by advising them and monitor them closely. This will lead them to successful schooling and good jobs.
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The longer both boys and girls stay in school the greater their sense of self-efficacy, and the better they are able to plan for the future, including formulating alternative plans. Girls who were out-of-
school aged 13 – 15 seemed in particular to lack confidence, and the ability to plan and execute plans, but by the age of 16 – 19, we see out-of-school girls coming to terms with the fact that their educational lives are probably over, and beginning to formulate a “Plan B”, as well as in-school girls formulating fall back plans in case they are unable to pursue their education further. At age 13 – 14, out-of-school boys, in contrast to out-of-school girls of the same age, seemed more able to shift to “Plan B” now that their education had been curtailed, and still felt confident in achieving their dreams even though these had changed. In general, boys seem better able to “shift gears”, and believe that their own attributes and skills will propel them forward in life despite a lack of external support. Girls, on the other hand, and in particular those out-of-school, felt unable to move forward in life without significant assistance from others, though this also changed with age.
Our research does, however, challenge that narrative that girls feel less valued because the work they do is less valued. We asked 10 – 15 year old boys and girls whose work was most important for the
family, the mother’s or the father’s. Boys expressed a great deal of respect for their mothers, and their roles in household livelihoods (see Box 6). In fact, 39% of girls and 38% boys thought that their mother’s work was more important to the family, compared to 35% of girls and boys who said their fathers’ work. Twenty-eight percent of girls and 27% of boys said both were equally important. What is clear, however, is that the girls are almost universally seen as weaker than boys, both physically and mentally, and that this will require significant time and effort to challenge.