said things like: ‘Virginity is Healthy for Boys and Girls’, ‘Young Children Say No to Gifts for Sex’ and ‘Sex Does Not Make Breasts Grow’.
The training itself was going on in one of the classrooms, where a mixed group of staff, parents and representatives of the student council had gathered. The discussion was already under way when I got there, so I slipped in, sat down next to a Plan employee and asked him what was happening.
‘We are making girls aware of HIV and AIDS, so that they know the negative impact if male teachers make sexual advances.’
He didn’t tell me the positive impact of male teachers making sexual advances.
The woman running the training session was rather more impressive. She was a large, commanding woman, exuding authority, and I was instantly terrified of her. If she had said jump, I would have not only checked how high, but what style of jump she preferred. Looking back on it, we were probably about the same age. Stuck on the walls behind her were lists of girls’ roles and responsibilities in school and at home. At home, girls must cook and serve food, fetch water, clean the house, compound, clothes and cooking utensils, collect firewood and look after children and elderly relatives. I don’t do all that, and I’m an adult. Then, at school, girls sweep the buildings, look after the grounds, fetch water, serve food and welcome guests. That’s aside from their actual schoolwork, of course.
The room then started to discuss the attributes of a girl-friendly school. It became clear that one of the key concerns needing to be addressed was sexual abuse, and the moderator led us towards consideration of requirements such as female counsellors and private counselling rooms where girls can express their concerns, female teachers and senior girls acting as mentors, as well as more straightforward practical steps such as putting up fencing to protect girls from men on the outside. One of the fathers in the room kept interrupting to say that what girls really want is flowers, ‘because girls are attracted to beauty’, or attractive uniforms, ‘because girls will like the school with the best-looking uniform’. The moderator acknowledged these interjections politely before returning to the point. It’s important, she told me afterwards, that parents are part of the training sessions, and afterwards they are sent into the community to train other parents. It’s a laudable aim, but with the fathers so unwilling to hear the darker implications of the discussion, it’s hard to know how much impact these sessions can have.
After the session, the local Plan Child Protection Officer, who had been working nearby, hitched a lift with us back to her office, which is a hut in the centre of one of the Kamuli district villages. That she is enormously popular here was self-evident: every child that we passed smiled, waved and called out her name. There are hundreds of children in her area and she knows them each individually. That the Child Protection Officer would be on first-name terms with every single child of the region is both extraordinarily commendable and deeply upsetting.
The office walls were covered in posters, most of which are advice to children on how to avoid sexual abuse. As with the signs in the school, the key message is abstinence: ‘I Always Say No to Sex’ read one poster. I tried to imagine a campaign against child abuse in the UK choosing to focus so heavily on the child’s responsibility to say no. But the CPO told me that it is necessary there. Girls are so poor they will have sex in return for anything at all – for one chapati. Male schoolteachers are known to offer high grades in return for sex, and given the value of a good education here, many girls agree to it. I asked what happens if a male teacher is found to be having sex with his students. ‘He is transferred to another school.’
But sexual abuse is not the only thing that children here are vulnerable
The training itself was going on in one of the classrooms, where a mixed group of staff, parents and representatives of the student council had gathered. The discussion was already under way when I got there, so I slipped in, sat down next to a Plan employee and asked him what was happening.
‘We are making girls aware of HIV and AIDS, so that they know the negative impact if male teachers make sexual advances.’
He didn’t tell me the positive impact of male teachers making sexual advances.
The woman running the training session was rather more impressive. She was a large, commanding woman, exuding authority, and I was instantly terrified of her. If she had said jump, I would have not only checked how high, but what style of jump she preferred. Looking back on it, we were probably about the same age. Stuck on the walls behind her were lists of girls’ roles and responsibilities in school and at home. At home, girls must cook and serve food, fetch water, clean the house, compound, clothes and cooking utensils, collect firewood and look after children and elderly relatives. I don’t do all that, and I’m an adult. Then, at school, girls sweep the buildings, look after the grounds, fetch water, serve food and welcome guests. That’s aside from their actual schoolwork, of course.
The room then started to discuss the attributes of a girl-friendly school. It became clear that one of the key concerns needing to be addressed was sexual abuse, and the moderator led us towards consideration of requirements such as female counsellors and private counselling rooms where girls can express their concerns, female teachers and senior girls acting as mentors, as well as more straightforward practical steps such as putting up fencing to protect girls from men on the outside. One of the fathers in the room kept interrupting to say that what girls really want is flowers, ‘because girls are attracted to beauty’, or attractive uniforms, ‘because girls will like the school with the best-looking uniform’. The moderator acknowledged these interjections politely before returning to the point. It’s important, she told me afterwards, that parents are part of the training sessions, and afterwards they are sent into the community to train other parents. It’s a laudable aim, but with the fathers so unwilling to hear the darker implications of the discussion, it’s hard to know how much impact these sessions can have.
After the session, the local Plan Child Protection Officer, who had been working nearby, hitched a lift with us back to her office, which is a hut in the centre of one of the Kamuli district villages. That she is enormously popular here was self-evident: every child that we passed smiled, waved and called out her name. There are hundreds of children in her area and she knows them each individually. That the Child Protection Officer would be on first-name terms with every single child of the region is both extraordinarily commendable and deeply upsetting.
The office walls were covered in posters, most of which are advice to children on how to avoid sexual abuse. As with the signs in the school, the key message is abstinence: ‘I Always Say No to Sex’ read one poster. I tried to imagine a campaign against child abuse in the UK choosing to focus so heavily on the child’s responsibility to say no. But the CPO told me that it is necessary there. Girls are so poor they will have sex in return for anything at all – for one chapati. Male schoolteachers are known to offer high grades in return for sex, and given the value of a good education here, many girls agree to it. I asked what happens if a male teacher is found to be having sex with his students. ‘He is transferred to another school.’
But sexual abuse is not the only thing that children here are vulnerable
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