Growing up a girl in Kenya: It will be a complicated affair for Eliana

At the age of two, Eliana Hekima is given a baby doll to play with when her brothers are given a toy car, and that illustrates a lot about the society she will grow in. Whenever she is in the house alone with the mother Caroline Waswa, all she watches on TV are animations about princesses and fairies while the boys are encouraged to watch robotic animations and programmes on nature or science.

Eliana, born in Nairobi, is the third born in a family of three children and the only girl. She is treated “softly” because, according to the mother, girls are supposed to be soft, tender, lovable and other such mushy things. Yet from the history of her mother’s pregnancies, she is the only child from the rest who weighed more at birth, 3.3kgs compared to the brothers, who weighed 3kgs and 2.4kgs, respectively.

The Nation this week explores the life Eliana is likely to live as the world marks the International Day of the Girl Child tomorrow (Monday).

We are using her and her experiences so far to tell the bigger story of growing up in Kenya female, and how the major milestones of life generally differ across the gender divide. What lies ahead for her, as a young girl growing up in a painfully patriarchal society? What stories will the development and growth indicators of her life say about her?

****

The diseases I will have to fight off:

While girls like me would rather keep quiet than reveal the abuse to someone, more of them are testing for HIV. According to the 2019 Violence Against Children Survey (VACS), among females who experienced sexual violence in the past 12 months, 88.2 per cent had ever been tested for HIV. Should I escape the wrath of molesters, and I hope I will, I am likely to die of pneumonia, cancer, sudden death and malaria, while my two brothers are most likely to die of road accidents. Interestingly, road accidents kill the least number of girls in Kenya annually, according to government data.

Cancer was the second leading cause of mortality in Kenya last year, killing more females than males, at 9.3 per cent.

Tuberculosis, kidney and urinary tract infections, and road accidents, which were among the top causes of death in males, were outside the list for females. Additionally, I am also likely to die of anaemia, diabetes and birth asphyxia at child-bearing age.

****

How far I’m likely to go in school:

If my mother follows Ministry of Education guidelines, and I hope she does, I will join pre-primary school at the age of four. By my sixth birthday I will have joined Grade One and will be expected to finish primary school by the age of 13.

These milestones, however, will also be dictated by my environment, particularly if I continue living in Nairobi. However, some my peers in the rural areas will probably be expectant by the time I go to secondary school. The early teens are the age when disadvantaged girls drop out of school and get married early.

Pregnancies, poverty, genital mutilation and other risks torment a lot of girls at that age, according to a 2018 study by The Borgen Project, a non-profit organisation.

Girls who drop out from school are 3.4 times more likely to be married early on. For whatever reason, as soon as a girl drops out from school, marriage is usually right around the corner. It also appears that, in some of these rural set-ups, my peers have very little voice — and choice — in decisions related to their marriage, including when to get married and to whom (or if to get married at all).

Less than 20 per cent of them have a say in deciding about the timing and the groom. Fathers are the key decision makers and, as you know in these social set-ups, daughters cannot oppose parents’ decisions.

I know I will have the privilege to attend school, but my education may still be tainted by a bias within the school system, as observed by the Weiss Scholarship Foundation, where teachers believe boys to be smarter than girls, thereby reinforcing distinctly male privileges in the long run.

As per recent analyses of KCPE results, I am likely to perform better in English, Kiswahili and Sign Language than my male counterparts in class. And, at the tertiary level, data shows that I will more likely consider a diploma or certificate course due to their marketability at the job market over university degrees, according to the Kenya University and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS).

****

When (and how) I might get married:

This will be interesting. And heart-breaking. If my parents don’t relocate from Nairobi, I will most likely get married at the age of 24, unlike my counterparts in rural areas who are likely to marry at the age of 17, or even younger, due to socio-economic struggles.

The age at which I will get married will be influenced by a host of factors, such as my level of education, which might make marriage incompatible with my long-term academic aspirations.

The economic stability of my partner of choice may affect my age of marriage as well, as demonstrated in a 2018 paper published in the Journal of Marriage and Family on the youth’s attitude towards marriage in Nairobi, Kenya.

The paper, titled Making Sense of Marriage: Gender and the Transition to Adulthood in Nairobi, Kenya, alludes to a theory developed in 1988 by American sociologist Dr Valerie Oppenheimer, which concludes that economic uncertainty often delays the age at which one is married, a trend that is more commonly seen in urban settings rather than rural ones.

Theories are not bad things. They point us to things we might have ignored. And so, if science is factual, I am more likely to cohabit than marry due to the precarious nature of income and employment amongst the youth. I hope things will have changed by the time I decide to cross that bridge.

Anyway, should I decide to settle down in marriage, I will still get the short end of the stick in many ways. Ambiguous or otherwise absent laws on violations such as marital rape will leave me susceptible to harm within the bounds of her marriage. I am also 40 per cent likely to deal with a form of intimate partner violence.

****

A career in politics? Perhaps not:

I plan to cast my first vote at age 18, and Kenyan company Data Science Limited notes that women between the ages of 18 and 34 are more invested in their civic duty than in their later years. Should I decide to pursue a political career, my chances of success are greater than those of previous years, yet still slim in comparison with my male counterparts. This is according to research provided by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Fida-Kenya.

In Kenya, women in the labour market mostly occupy low-grade positions. What’s worse; while Kenya’s population is 52 per cent female, only four per cent of the elected MPs are women. That means Kenyans only voted in nine women but were happy to send 201 men to Parliament.

****

Probable age at my first pregnancy:

I am most likely give birth to my first child at the age of 28, or in the year 2047 since I’m two already, depending on how far I will go education-wise and the socioeconomic class I will find myself in. This is according to research conducted by American databank Knoema in 2020. The study also shows that I will have about three children in my lifetime.

Three factors will be at play regarding the timing of my first birth. One is the “incarceration” effect, where pregnant students in countries like Kenya face harsh policies that restrict their learning even after the delivery of their children.

Then, my knowledge on contraception and, further, my autonomy as a result of my earning capacity may raise my age of fertility, according to a paper published by the World Bank titled Age at First Child: Does Education Delay Fertility Timing?: The Case of Kenya, by Celine Ferre.

****

The jobs I could do:

I am growing up in a society where women have somehow been made to go for specific jobs, like teaching and nursing. Gender inequality also exists due to the way the Kenyan society has socialised its people.

The types of societal roles allocated to men and women have created a disparity that is pronouncing the inequalities between men and women. The same goes for other public offices, as only 13 per cent of professionals in public service were women in 2002.

However, I hope to receive support from my political party due to constitutional provisions on inclusion, even though some political parties still retain regulations that fail to recognise the importance of creating political equality.

Candidate training also remains the reserve of male aspirants, with political parties focusing their resources on them as opposed to women in the same capacity.

A significant barrier in my political career, should I decide to go that way, would be physical and psychological violence, which has deterred women’s participation in politics for decades, whether they are married or not.

****

How long I’m likely to live:

My life expectancy in a country which is home to more than 50 million people will be dictated by my family’s poverty levels. Even though I live bang in the middle of the city, on Park Road in Ngara, my family’s financial situation will determine whether or not I will have access to a doctor and primary health care, and when I finally grow up my where I choose to live in and my bank balances will determine the longevity of my life.

In a sad way, therefore, the inverse relationship between wealth and life expectancy will always hang over my head. Yet poverty has impacts beyond general health, too, like exposing people disproportionally to unsafe living conditions. If I am lucky to access the necessities, then I will most likely hit the age of 66 years while my two brothers could die four years earlier than me, at 62. That’s the prevailing life expectancy among males and females in Kenya today, even though we know that science and better quality of life could push it upwards by the time we are of age.

Had I been born in Garissa, which has Kenya’s highest life expectancy (I hear women there on average live 22 years longer than those in the worst performing county in the country), I would live to probably about 83 years

Higher life expectancy in Garissa is attributed to the high prevalence of lifestyle diseases in the cities, like in Nairobi, where I live with my family. People in the villages tend to be more active, smoke or drink less often and are not used to fast foods that have contributed to an obesity epidemic in the urban areas.

****

The violence I face:

I am likely to face more hardships growing up than my brothers, according to the Kenya 2019 Violence Against Children Survey (VACS) that measures the prevalence, nature and consequences of physical, emotional and sexual violence against children and youth.

More females, at 40 per cent, are more likely to be abused than their male counterparts, at 29 per cent. This means that, at my young age, I am likely to be physically abused than my brothers. I hear that 62 per cent of young girls in the country have at one point experienced multiple incidents before their graduation to adulthood. Unfortunately, girls are less likely to report incidents of abuse. Only two out of five females who experienced childhood sexual violence told someone about it.

A recent study by International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) found out that 70 per cent of girls indicated a high likelihood of sexual harassment, as well as physical and emotional violence, in different the places they frequent.