Sarah Kibugi - Africa Information Ethics Portal

INTRODUCTIONCulture is an emotive issue, not just in Kenya, but in Africa as awhole. According to (Ngugi, 1972 P.4), “Culture in its broadestsense is a way of life fashioned by people in their collectiveendeavour to live and to come to terms with their totalenvironment”. Following the colonial experience, many studieshave been conducted on the erosion of African culture. Yet weseem to forget that culture is not cast in stone, it is an evolvingset of beliefs, value systems and practices that are agreed uponby a group of people.

Society has lost its valuesIn the Daily Nation, Wednesday July 7 th 2010, the following twoarticles appeared:-• “Father to spend 20 years in jail for defiling daughter. He haddefiled his 8 years old daughter”.• Protect your child from sexual abuse. This article is aboutparents taking the initiative to discuss sexual issues with theirchildren, teach them not to allow anyone touch their privateparts or play any funny game with them. This article was as aresult of a man arrested because he defiled a 5 years old girl.

• A 2010 Amnesty International Study carried out between 2009and February 2010 shows that more than half the women inslums have experienced physical sexual and psychologicalviolence. Blue House Clinic situated in Mathare slums treatsbetween 20 and 40 rape victims every month many of thembeing children. The Clinic has treated an 86 year old woman anda 6 months old baby• According to a study by African Population and Health researchCentre (APHRC), parents living in one roomed quarters in slumsexpose their sex life to children. According to the study, it isevident that parents sex life is impacting on their childrennegatively. Many 11 and 12 year old girls have already given birth.They say they learnt about sex from their parents.

So the big question is:• What measures should be put in place in order to protect theirchildren from negative influence resulting from marital life.Should parents in slums areas pull their resources together andrent separate housing for their children? Children would spendthe night in the rented house and return to their parent’s housein the morning.• Taking into consideration the state of insecurity in the slums,would this work? It may also bring out the danger of the childrenwanting to experiment because they are on their own.Empowering children and youth with relevant knowledge, skillsand attitudes is a core business of any community. Any governmentneeds to strive to nurture a cohesive and knowledgeable societywith core national values such as tolerance, patriotism, respect forlife and human rights.

• Historically we need to accept that ‘community has a centralplace in African culture. The bond between community andindividual is still evident and that is why the issue of ‘taboos’is still handled with caution. Every society has got its ownculture which refers to any pattern of norms, values beliefsand ways of behavior that characterize the manner in whichgroups and individuals collaborate, so it would be expectedthat Kenyan society would be one. However this is not sobecause of the conflict which has led to extremes i.e. the verypoor and the extremely rich. These people live in differentareas even if they are residents of one country.

• In Africa, even before the coming of colonialists, differentsocieties had developed their own systems of transmittingtheir particular knowledge and skills. These systems had onething in common, they aimed to conserve the culturalheritage of the family, clan and ethnic group, to adaptchildren to their physical environment and teach them how touse it and to explain to them that their own future and that oftheir community depended on the continuation andunderstanding of their ethnic institutions of laws, languageand values they inherited from the past.

• During the first years, the mother was responsible for thechild’s education. The father then took control of malechildren. Morally the child was made to conform to themodes, customs and standards of behaviour inherent in theclan into which it was born or which it is living. Bad habitsand undesirable or disruptive behaviour was not tolerated inany child. As children grew they were engaged in productiveeducation. Boys were informally introduced to trade such asmetal works while girls learnt feminine responsibilities suchas fetching water and firewood.

• The world today is confronted with new and complex problemsespecially due to the modern information technologies to enable quickand high quality communication. We need to be aware that thistechnology can destroy value systems such as culture.• There are over 200 slums in Nairobi housing approximately 2.5 millionpeople crammed in only 5% of the city territory. The slums aremultiethnic and 60-70 of its dwellers are under 30 years of age (KutokaNetwork Brochure 2006) without overemphasizing the economic andsocial status of people living in slums it is expected that they have aculture of their own quite distinct in its own way due to the socialinequalities they face. Inequality has punctuated the human speciessince time immemorial. In practice there is no known society in whichsocial divisions of one kind or another do not exist. The more evidentis the divide between the rich and the poor and the information havesand have not’s. Since a child learns from various situations such asother children, parents and community, these environments influenceand determine the person’s acquisition of mental, physical and socialknowledge.

CHALLENGES• Socialization of the young has been neglected. Youthcomprise approximately 38% of Kenya’s population(Vision 2030, 2007). However Kenyan children andyouth living in the slum areas face many challengessuch as high level of poverty, exposure to social risks,limited opportunities to educational and technologicaltraining, unemployment, drug abuse, alcoholism,prostitution, criminality, rapes, domestic violence,early pregnancies, and street children among manyothers.

The following two scenarios indicate how oursocialization has failed our children• In Kenya for one to get an identification card (ID)after attaining the age of 18, one must give thehome address. A street child goes to the officerissuing the ID and is asked where his home is andthe address. He looks blankly at the officer whocannot understand the blank look. For this boy hedoes not know what is a home.• For the upper class children, home is in the villagewhere the grandparents live, house is where you livein the city. Again this is an issue of socializationand a problem of urbanization.

INSECURITY• Insecurity has contributed significantly to the life in slums.Youth become criminals at a very early age. They look at thesociety as the enemy because of depriving them of theirchildhood. Communities expect parents to be role models forthe young. However this is not happening in the slum areaswhere such vices as alcoholism, drugs, crime, sex and violenceare the order of the day. Early pregnancies are common andsometimes it is possible to find a 9 or 10 year old mother.

HABITAT (HOUSING)• The problem of habitat more so housing has brought about the divide between thechildren living in the upper market areas and those living in informal settlementareas. Children in the upper market areas of Nairobi live in comfortable homes, go togood schools with adequate facilities such as libraries, computer, laboratories, playinggrounds, swimming pools. These children may have access to computers in their ownhomes. They have televisions, video and even mobile phones. They can also accessnewspapers because their parents most likely will take newspapers home. Parents inthis social stratum are very busy people striving to maintain their economic status.They have very little time for socializing their children.• When out of school, the children are in the company of house helps (ayah). The otherbig problem is that parents tend to assume that teachers will provide for all thelearning, disciplinary and socialization of the youth including ethical values ofsociety. The schools as they are today do not have the capability; time or evenmotivation to teach the values of the society. Teachers also assume that teaching ofsocial values is the responsibility of parents.• Children in the informal settlements those lucky enough to go to school will be inovercrowded and ill equipped schools. They would not have libraries or computerlaboratories. Majority of them are street children who do not know what a home is. Intheir world they do not live like ordinary people, they know of ‘base’ not home. Tothem therefore home has no meaning. They live in shacks as small as 10 by 10 feetwhere sometimes 400 people share one toilet.

So the big question is:-• How have these children and youth been socialized in thecontext of a home?• How do we change their perception so that they can see ordinaryhomes as a home and not a ‘base’?The following two scenarios indicate how our socialization hasfailed our children• In Kenya for one to get an identification card (ID) after attainingthe age of 18, one must give the home address. A street child goesto the officer issuing the ID and is asked where his home is. Helooks blankly at the officer who cannot understand the blanklook. For this boy he does not know what is a home.• For some people, home is in the village where the parents live,house is where you live in the city. Again this is an issue ofsocialization and a problem of urbanization.

• In the informal settlements, there is no playing ground for the childrenbecause the playing grounds have been grabbed through corruption.Due to poverty, it is often found that one room is the homeaccommodating parents and their children, we need to appreciate thatmorally this is unacceptable. As we look at information ethics andchildren and specifically the ones living in the informal settlements,the issue of street children, street families and the issue of who willdeliberately enforce values on them come to mind. What will they bein future? Yet we know children need an environment which is healthyfrom the aspect of home.• For the elite the institutional frame work has collapsed and the ayah isnot a substitute of this institution. It is interesting to note that ayahsare usually the school drop outs yet they are left to take care of thechildren of the elite since the parents are too busy looking for money. Itis not uncommon for some parents to assume that since they haveprovided all the material things their children require their presence isnot needed at home. So we need to ask ourselves should one spousestay home and how can this be achieved? In the rural areas the scenariois the same because the traditional institutions were dismantled.

It is a matter of concern about parental absence from the home because eachparent has specific contributions towards rearing children which nobody else candeputize.• Is the father at home to provide discipline and give the boy the model foridentification?• Is the mother at home to provide nurturance as well as female role modeling?The absence or non participation of one parent in the child’s life leaves deficits orgaps which could be easily filled by many negative influences. We need to beaware that when home discipline is defective. Children become poorly adjusted.Children are a photocopy of their parent’s character, if the parents arte empty ofvalues, there is no way the children will have values. Some parents see theirchildren as a form of tax on their time, comfort and freedom. Other parents sendtheir children to boarding schools even at the age of 5. The home is supposed tobe the first classroom in which a child sits but unfortunate the teachers i.e.parents have absconded from duty. For most children, television have becometheir dads because they watch television everyday, radios have become theirmothers, because the radios talk to them whenever they want yet parents aresupposed to be available, responsible and teaching their families. The children aretherefore headed for distraction due to absent parents since they turn to friends toprovide them with information. Marital conflict, domestic violence have alsocontributed greatly to the loss of values e.g. when parents quarrel and fight infront of their children, what values are they giving.

INTERVENTIONS• Some religious bodies especially churches have recognizedthe importance of arming the children and youth with Africanethics, cultures and values. They, therefore organize “rights ofpassage” during the December vacations. Boys are puttogether as they undergo circumcision and they are indictedinto the African culture. Girls are also put together andeducated on the morals and values. This is not enoughbecause it cannot reach all the youth.

TEACHING INFORMATION ETHICS INKENYA• In Kenya like in other countries worldwide, ethics isviewed as a supportive subject to a major discipline e.g.you find Information Ethics in the Library Sciencecourses.• In secondary schools, social education and ethics islooked at as a minor subject. It is an elective subjectand is not considered as an important cluster foruniversity admissions. Looking at books on thissubject, it is evident that if made compulsory we maystart seeing change.

CONCLUSION• In conclusion, it can be said that Children and youth whetherliving in the upper market or slums have common culturalproblems touching on values and ethics which need to beaddressed so that a whole generation is not lost.

KEY ISSUESThe key issues to address if we are to help in character formation ofour children could be the following:-• How do we organize the socialization of children where notion ofhome is fluid and the presence of parents is fluid?• How do we inculcate morals, values and culture to our childrenaway from the influence of television and western culture?• How do we ensure that children whether in the upper market orinformal settlement have access to the accurate and relevantinformation in order to see themselves as important and valuedmembers of the society?• How do we prepare the curriculum so that the reading culturecan be inculcated in children?• How do we re-create African information traditions? Do weengage grandfathers and grandmothers to teach moral values toour children and youth?

SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS•Establishing digital villages without pornography materialsin order to teach shape and direct the mind of the youth.•Setting up libraries with African traditional materials•Setting up cultural groupings to endorse traditional virtues•Setting up centers with professional and religiouscounselors•Close linkages with Christian churches and Islamicmosques•Development of teaching materials