Why its time to listen to girls growing up in crisis

Meaningfully engaging with adolescent girls in humanitarian response

Adolescent girls clearly articulated their needs. They told us how their experiences differ from those of men and women, as well as their male peers. They also know what support they want from the humanitarian community.

We should be paying more attention. Globally, over half of all refugees are children, and 50% are female.

In South Sudan, two thirds of the population are younger than 18 years old, as are half of those who have been forcibly displaced.

We undertook this research with adolescent girls and boys to help fill in some of the gaps in knowledge. We wanted to understand their lived experiences and coping strategies. We wanted to seek their views on how the sector can better address these self-identified sources of insecurity.

So, what did they tell us?

Experiences of violence are pervasive

In South Sudan, adolescent girls described a continuum of violence, which has become normalised in their homes and communities.

One girl told us: “We will be beaten by unknown people. Because the security is not good at night. People can easily be killed or shot dead at night time.”

This has had a huge impact on the mental health of girls. 75% of the girls we spoke with stated that the conflict has had a negative effect on their state of mind. 26% had thought at least once about ending their own life in the last 12 months.

In South Sudan, 36% of girls had lost either a parent or a sibling through conflict-related violence, while 64% of the Rohingya girls report living in the camp without one or both of their parents.

This substantially impacts adolescent girls' education and life journeys, and contributes to the continued degradation of their time, labour and safety.

Child marriage leads to reductions in access to education

In both contexts, child, early and forced marriage is prevalent, and was the overwhelming fear reported by adolescent girls in South Sudan.

Child marriage and sexual violence has led to increases in adolescent pregnancy, which has in turn had an impact on attendance at school.

The lack of participation in education was another critical issue raised by girls in both contexts.

In Bangladesh, only 28% of the Rohingya girls we spoke with were currently attending some form of school.

There is a challenge with the availability of services, but girls’ lack of participation in education was acutely connected with restrictions that had been put on their freedom of movement, often linked to prevailing gender norms.

One adolescent Rohingya girl told us: “My mother is not allowing me to go. I have to listen to my mother. My mother used to say, ‘Girls do not need to study more. They need to perform the household chores.’ That is why she does not allow me to go to school.”