Because I am a Girl: Urban and Digital Frontiers - Plan International

The reality of city life does not always match
up to adolescent girls’ expectations. As a
study from Burkina Faso notes: “Comparing
adolescent girls’ situation to that of boys
demonstrates that their opportunities as
migrants were very different. Since girls were
rarely paid on a regular basis, they could
not easily save up money. Instead, they
emphasised the status and skills they gained
such as clothes, things for their trousseau and,
in particular, urban cooking skills – things that
would help them find a good husband, and
preferably one who appreciated their urban
skills: that is, a migrant. Thereby they reiterated
adult notions of rural girlhood, namely that
adolescent girls are ready to marry and that
they in fact do not think about much else.” 49
In addition, the risks an adolescent girl
faces in trying to realise her aspirations are
often disproportionately higher than for
an adolescent boy. As we will see later in
the chapter, there are many aspects of city
life which are hugely problematic for an
adolescent girl.
…and push
“I dream, always dream that the city isn’t like
it is here, here it’s always suffering… well, as
I see it, there can’t be that much suffering [in
the city], because they don’t get wet, they
don’t get sunburned, they have their secure
jobs, they have their daily schedule, and in
contrast, here it’s back-breaking.”
A rural mother’s hopes for
her children in Peru 50
For many adolescent girls, the lure of the city
is matched by the need to escape from the
village. One study in Egypt of street children
between the ages of 10 and 18 found that
82 per cent of children said they had come to
the city because of abuse by the family or at
work; 62 per cent cited parental neglect; and
62 per cent “came from broken families due to
divorce, separation, the death of one or more
parents, imprisonment of a parent or both, or
extreme sickness of a parent or both”. 51
Violence, abuse, or family breakdown
are other ‘push’ factors for young women
leaving the countryside.
Adolescent girls may also be escaping
various forms of gender discrimination. For
example, one study in Accra, Ghana, showed
that young women, disinherited by their
fathers because of inheritance laws that
favour boys, moved to the city as they were
unable to support themselves in the village. 52
Rukshana, who now lives on the streets of
Mumbai with her 11 year-old sister Deepa,
also left because of inheritance disputes:
“Our village is in Murshidabad, West
Bengal. My two brothers live in the village.
Both are married. My younger brother loves
me a lot. But how can I live with them? He
has five children and no house. When my
father was ill, he asked his brother – my
uncle – to leave all his land in his children’s
names. You know what my uncle did? He
put it all in his name. My father died and my
uncle removed us from our house. He is the
one who threw us into problems. He brought
us to Kings Circle in Mumbai, made us
work and didn’t give us anything to eat. We
almost died of starvation. My mother cried
a lot. She told me: ‘My daughter, do honest
work to eat. Don’t go on the wrong path.’
Since then I have worked hard and come up.
There is no question of going astray.” 53
Her mother later died in the city when
Rukshana was 13, leaving her to look after
her little sister.
Escaping forced or early marriage is
another reason many adolescent girls leave
their village. Shimu is one of thousands who
did so. She now lives in Dhaka, the capital
of Bangladesh. She left her village to avoid
marrying a man that her parents had chosen
for her at a very young age. She says that
“living in the city has allowed [her] to make
a break from traditional networks”. True, she
sometimes feels lonely and doesn’t know
what to do. But she does know that she
doesn’t have to do what her relatives and
elders tell her. She prefers living in Dhaka
because “here I can earn a living, live and
think my own way”. In her village none of
this would have been possible. 54
Shimu is not alone. A survey in slum areas
of Addis Ababa found that one in every four
young women migrants between the ages of
10 and 19 came to the city to escape early
marriage. 55 This 17 year-old said:
“My parents were trying to marry me, but
I didn’t want to get married. So I ran away
and came here. My mother has said that I’m
not her daughter any more, but I didn’t want
to get married. I wanted to study – that’s
why I came.”
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