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Society
Growing Up Girls
by Nitin Jugran Bahuguna
Young Seema*
remembers a time when her brother saw some boys teasing her while she
was standing on the balcony of her house. Instead of reprimanding the
boys, her brother pushed her indoors and started abusing her while her
mother beat her up. "I was furious and bewildered by this attack,
especially as I had not done anything," is the young girl's impassioned
protest.
Meera, 19, recollects an incident a few years back when she was
returning home after fetching milk and was physically accosted by a boy
in the street. "I had not wrapped a chunni (scarf) around my
shoulders," she admits. The chunni is a symbol of modesty and
women who do not wear one are often looked at as brazen and of "loose
morals" not only in the south Delhi Tigri resettlement colony where
Meera and Seema live, but in many neighborhoods across India.
Though Meera's mother immediately caught and thrashed the boy, the
neighbors were not so supportive. "Our neighbor commented that the fault
lay with me for not wearing a chunni," recalls Meera ruefully.
Another girl explains how her boyfriend gets furious if he sees her
talking to anyone in the lane. "One day he saw me talking to my
brother...he came in the evening and beat me up severely. But even then
I did not say anything to him because I love him so much."
Shekhar, 19, who works in a finance company, when asked what kind of
friendship boys and girls share, says, "It depends upon the boys' will.
Some boys and girls have sex and some do not." Aman narrated how his
friend was able to coerce his girlfriend into having sexual relations
with him. When asked if the girl had not objected, he responded: "No,
because my friend had made her eat some medicine that made her also feel
like having sex."
These incidents are illustrative of the complex social and sexual
interactions between adolescent boys and girls. Adolescence is a stage
of transience from being a child towards becoming an adult - with needs
that the child does not know and adults fail to acknowledge. In the
Indian context of a patriarchal society, adolescent girls' vulnerability
is heightened by the prevailing stereotypes that ensure her subordinate
position.
"The roles of a woman seldom deviate from the norm and the adjectives
used to describe a 'good' woman actually lets women be the 'weaker' sex
at the mercy of men," observes community health activist Dr Geeta Sodhi.
"Perpetuation of these stereotypes has led women to passively accept the
roles given to them by society. This acquiescence and the resultant
vulnerability are being handed down from mothers to daughters and the
need of the hour is to break this cycle and better equip adolescent
girls to handle themselves," she adds.
Sodhi is Director of Swaasthya, an NGO working in the Tigri resettlement
colony with the goal of enhancing the reproductive health status of the
community. In 1996, Swaasthya initiated a qualitative research on the
sexual behavior of adolescents in the colony. Findings of the research
reiterated the vulnerability of adolescent girls to HIV/AIDS, sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs), unwanted pregnancies, sexual coercion,
violence and exploitation.
"Subsequently, we designed an intervention programme to enhance the
sexual health of adolescent girls by addressing the girls and their
immediate environment based on a community development approach,"
explains Sodhi. Some of the factors influencing adolescent girls'
vulnerability were found to be low self-esteem, low bargaining power,
social norms that hamper access to information, lack of understanding
and knowledge of body and sexuality, lack of negotiation skills and
gender inequalities.
To reduce these factors, the training programme was designed so that
girls would be able to carve an identity of their own by learning about
the concept of self, emotions, relationships, body and violation of
self; enhancing their personal skills in problem solving, decision
making, negotiation and assertion; and applying the acquired skills in
real life settings. "Our objective is to provide an enabling and
supportive environment for adolescent girls by increasing communication
between various groups in the community, not only on taboo subjects like
sex but also on everyday topics," says Sodhi. Attitudinal changes in
mothers, boys and peers were also sought to increase understanding of
girls' needs, awareness of their rights and ability to make their own
decisions, she points out.
The concerns of adolescents are dealt with in depth in the recent 'State
of the World Population 2005' report brought out by the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA). Nearly half the world's population - over three
billion people - is under the age of 25 and 85 per cent of them live in
developing countries, it says.
Observing that gender-based expectations greatly influence the
experience of adolescence, the report says girls are often left at a
disadvantage. As they enter puberty, bias against girls puts them at
higher risk than boys for dropping out of school, sexual violence and
child marriage. Boys' freedoms and opportunities may expand while girls'
experiences are often the opposite, it notes.
During this period, differential treatment may become more pronounced,
with girls schooled to become wives and mothers and boys groomed to
become providers. Girls are typically expected to be compliant while
boys are encouraged to project strength and control. The expectations
placed on boys could contribute to aggressive or risky behavior, with
harmful effects for them and others, the report warns.
It recognizes that adolescents' perception of their own value and
potential is strongly influenced by family members, friends, schools,
communities and the media and that parents and other adults in the
community can provide supportive guidance and foster inter-generational
understanding to help adolescents cope with the new challenges in their
lives.
Raising girls and boys to respect each other, to aspire equally to
educational and work opportunities and to expect fair treatment in
relationships and marriage helps build strong families and advances the
Millennium Development Goals, the report adds.
Swaasthya has made a perceptible move in this direction. Its' ongoing
Sexual Health Intervention Programme, started in 1999 in collaboration
with the International Centre for Research on Women, a Washington-based
NGO, has led to improved communication and social support, which has
helped align girls with their mothers, peers, boys and men within the
community.
For girls like Sadhana, 14, who hardly ever used to go outdoors or even
talk to anyone within her family, the Swaasthya meetings transformed her
magically. Now both she and her mother have joined the programme and
have started communicating with each other and sharing their views. And
when Prema, 19, approached a Mahila Panchayat member for help after
becoming pregnant following rape by a local youth, the entire community
stood by her and forced the culprit to pay the expenses for an abortion.
(*Names of all girls and boys have
been changed to protect their identities.)
January 22,
2005
By arrangement with
Women's Feature Service
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Society
The Week of January 22, 2006
Middle Class Heroes by Rajinder Puri
Hamas Treads the Political Path by Sujata
Ashwarya Cheema
Power, Pelf, Torture & Terror by Gaurang Bhatt,
MD
Indian Prime
Minister's Image Takes A Beating by Dr. Subhash Kapila
The Chemistry of Romance by Rajgopal
Nidamboor
Nation Building by Dr. Anil K. Rajvanshi
Hypocrisy by J. Ajithkumar
No Chicken by Manjula Waldron
Unforgettable Times: Indo
English Poetry in the Seventies by Dr. Amitabh Mitra
The Art and Bliss of Sexual Union by Meena
Iyer
Growing up Girls by Nitin Jugran Bahuguna
Model for Safer Motherhood by Tripat Kaur
Aditi in Wonderland by R Uma Maheshwari
Fatally White by Andrée-Marie Dussault
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