Africa: Opportunities and dangers for 21st century girls

Plan International
Press Release

Embargoed until September 22nd 2010

Opportunities and dangers for the 21st Century Girls

Nairobi: With an urbanization rate of 4-5 percent per annum and a staggering 38 per cent of its population currently living in cities, millions of girls in sub Saharan Africa are likely to be left behind the expanding benefits of urbanization and technological advancement, a report by international child rights organization Plan International says.

Although there are generally fewer street girls than boys, the report says their invisibility makes them the most at risk of abuse, exploitation and sexual assault. The general public treats them with contempt while those meant to protect them, such as the police offer them violence instead.

“These booming areas present new opportunities for girls and young women. But both cities and the internet are not always planned with their best interest in mind” says the Nigel Chapman, Plan’s Chief Executive.

“Without the right measures, urban and virtual spaces are at risk of becoming yet another place from which girls are either excluded or simply scared to enter” Chapman says in a commentary accompanying the report.

Plan’s annual global study Because I am A Girl: The State of the World’s Girls 2010 report, which will be launched today, makes the chilling findings. The report was released to coincide with the September 20-22nd UN summit meeting in New York called to speed progress towards achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of which one of the targets is to ensure significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.

The report reveals that the boom in city populations and the explosion of cyberspace offer the best chances for girls to go to school, to marry later, give birth more safely and have more of a say in their lives than their rural cousins. But many of the benefits do not apply to slums where 62 per cent of urban population in Sub Saharan Africa reside.

It shows that while cyber space are becoming hunting grounds for crime syndicate and traffickers wanting to lure young girls into the sex industry, young girls with nowhere to live, no family support, unsafe streets and prejudice are being forced out of schools into risky and unsafe relationship.

“A lot of men from the general public or from nearby offices come to the river. They then solicit sex from girls… A man comes and picks whoever they want to have sex with. If I am picked, I leave my child with the other girls and take the client down to the river,” says Tanya, 14, from Harare, Zimbabwe.

“Even if they don’t use a condom, it’s not like I was ever going to make much out of my life anyway. I don’t see myself ever leaving these streets and having a better life, so I might as well do something that will help me to survive for the moment as tomorrow is another day. “I’m afraid to visit the hospital for HIV tests. But if I cannot have sex with these men, eventually I’ll die of hunger. It is better to die of AIDS than hunger,” She says.

When girls perceive that their environment is threatening, they start to avoid the places that make them feel unsafe. As a result, streets, squares, parks, internet cafés, public toilets, and neighborhoods are often used more by men and boys than by women and girls.

“You have no one to take care of you. Nobody in the society respects you or wants to see you… People don’t care whether you die, whether you live,” says a street girl from Kenya

“I like being a girl, but I want to know my rights,” said a girl who is a secondary school student in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya. She said that she felt she could hardly step out of her home at night without being assaulted.

While women and children are recognized as specific categories in policy and planning, girls’ particular needs and rights are often ignored.

“There is little recognition at any level by those who run our cities that adolescent girls have different requirements and different vulnerability than boys and older women,” says Gezahegn Kebede, the Regional Director of Plan International in Eastern and Southern Africa. “Women and girls should have as much right to the city as men and boys; to freedom of mobility, to use public spaces, to go to school, to engage in politics and to participate in the benefits of urban life without fear,” Kebede says.

The outgoing Under Secretary General and Executive secretary of Human Settlements (UN Habitat) Ms Anne J. Tibaijuka in a forward statement in this report says “Right to the City is about consultation, inclusion, and empowering people to solve their own problems. It is about fighting slums, not slum dwellers, and fighting poverty instead of fighting the poor! Empowering and including girls and young women is crucial. Their rights and needs have been ignored for too long”

“The evidence in this report demonstrates what can and must be done and I am delighted that Plan and all the many organizations that have contributed to the 2010 Girls’ Report have called us all to action. We must not condemn another generation to life in urban slums, or worse” says Tibaijuka.

As African heads of state join the rest of the world leaders in New York for the Millennium Development Goals review summit, Plan International (Region of Eastern and Southern Africa) is calling on Africa to take the lead in addressing the plight of African girl children living in city slums and other informal settlements by ensuring:

· Girls’ rights in cities (economic, social, political and cultural) are guaranteed
· Girls have equal access with boys to all services.
· No girl is so poor that she has to sell her body to survive
· Every girl has access to decent shelter, education, employment, transport and health services.
· Girls living in cities are free from violence, at home, at school, and in the street
· Girls living in cities are not discriminated against or harassed
· Girls living in cities have equal access with boys to technology
· A clear understanding is noted that girls’ needs are different from boys’ and from each other
· Adolescent girls’ needs are documented and taken care of in political and planning processes.

-ENDS-

For more information, please contact Regis Nyamakanga on mobile phone +254712 205 860 or Masudi Hamimu on mobile phone +254715 101 464