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Young women and urbanization - trying to cope in crowded cities

Arvidsson, Matilda; Kiwala, Lucia

Published in:Habitat Debate

2003

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Citation for published version (APA):Arvidsson, M., & Kiwala, L. (2003). Young women and urbanization - trying to cope in crowded cities. HabitatDebate, 9(2), 10-10.

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10

Habitat Debate June 2003

Young women and urbanizationtrying to cope in crowded citiesBy Lucia Kiwala and Matilda Arvidsson

Global Overview

Deborah, 18, has always dreamedof a better life and better jobprospects in Nairobi. But she is

also discovering the grim realities oftoday’s rapidly urbanizing world – a worldin which young people like her often endup in slums that are potentially dangerousplaces for young women.

Driven by poverty, many young womenleave their rural homes to try their luck inthe city. According to a study last year bythe African Population and ResearchCentre, slum populations in Nairobi, theKenyan capital, are growing mainly becauseof rural to urban migration.

The slums, lacking security of tenure,are the only places young people can findcheaper accommodation. Often sharingwith friends or total strangers, they live inover-crowded and dangerousenvironments. Some are introduced to sexand drugs at an early age, and many findthemselves having sexual relationshipsand babies prematurely. Others mix withcriminals and drug barons and becomevictims as well as offenders. Notsurprisingly, the study found young girlsto be at much higher risk in the slums thanat home in the countryside.

This is also true for young girls andwomen who get a formal education.Because of peer pressure and towninfluence, some become teenage motherswithout any hope of continuing theireducation, and have to find their way in theworld as unskilled single mothers withoutchild-care help or support from their parents.

Some countries have revised theireducational policies to allow teenagemothers to continue with their education.But in many developing countries, societydoes not tolerate this. Should this statusquo be maintained given the level ofdevelopment, modernisation and rapidurbanization?

Depending on the level of education,many young women do not fit into theformal employment system. They then haveto resort to working as domestic servants,or shop and bar attendants, or marketvendors, hawkers, or employees in garmentfactories in the free trade zones. Theyencounter exploitation and abuse. In manycountries, they work long hours for low pay,surviving on meagre incomes which theyhave to share with extended families backhome in the rural areas.

The long working hours expose themto the added dangers of getting to and

Through years of conflict, women in Afghanistanhave suffered every form of discrimination anddegradation. Can this mother and her daughtershope for a better future? Photo: © UN-HABITAT

argued that most young women from thehills of Nepal were not in fact “tricked” intoprostitution by crafty outsiders, or druggedand kidnapped by Indian gangsters onlyto wake up several days later in a Mumbaibrothel. He argued instead that manyvillagers knowingly sold their daughtersinto prostitution because they had no othermeans of survival. In other words,prostitution in South Asia is not primarily acriminal issue, but a social problem causedby poverty and caste discrimination in astrictly hierarchical society.

Trafficking of young women andchildren from Eastern Europe, Africa andAsia to Europe, North America, and theMiddle East is also documented, as arethe links between trafficking, conflict andurbanized areas. One of the latestexamples is the involvement byInternational Police Task Force (IPTF)officers in Bosnia and Herzegovina intrafficking, as reported by Human RightsWatch in 2002. What is being done to stopthese crimes against young women? Areexisting national and international lawsadequate? Are the needs of young womenunderstood and therefore addressed bymost urban policies? This is the situationfor young girls in an urbanizing world.

Considerably more remains to be doneto sensitise the entire criminal justicesystem on promoting the human rights ofwomen and children, and on generalissues related to gender equality andjustice. Good examples include initiativessuch as UNIFEM’s work in Yemen wherejudges, prosecutors and lawyers aretrained to deal with cases of violenceagainst women, with special attention toremedying sole reliance on tribal law.

In the developing world not muchattention is being paid to international ornational laws on trafficking, prostitution,sexual exploitation and abuse of womenand children. But it is a fact that povertydrives parents to send their childrenabroad to earn money.

So addressing poverty in general andurban poverty in particular, while creatingviable employment opportunities foryoung women and men, must be seriouslyconsidered by governments, developmentagencies, private sector and civil societyactivists engaged in planning anddeveloping policies and programmes forurban areas.

It is imperative to understand theneeds and priorities of young women andmen. This would have a real impact forpeople like Deborah and hercontemporaries in the Nairobi slums.

Lucia Kiwala is the Chief of UN-HABITAT’sGender Mainstreaming Unit. Matilda Arvidssonis doing an internship with UN-HABITAT.

from work in the dark. According to LydiaAlpizar of Elige, a Mexican NGO, manyyoung women, mostly working in theexport processing zones have beenmurdered since 1993 in Mexico City.Forty per cent of the murders recorded inMexico City were young women aged 15-19. In Mexico City, they have been thevictims of the drug trade, trafficking inpersons, and the human organ trade.Many criminal gangs benefit fromviolence against women.

The victims of murders and other crimesare often attributed to prostitutes, thusdrawing scant sympathy or understandingfrom the criminal justice system.

As the debate on legalisingprostitution rages, the human rights ofyoung women are grossly violated, andothers are denied the fundamental rightto life. The situation is dreadful, giventhat many are forced into prostitution.

Commercial sexual exploitation andabuse of young women and children is welldocumented. In its October 2000 report onRape for Profit, Human Rights Watchdocuments the plight of young womenworking in the brothels in Bombay andother parts of India, brought from Nepaland other neighbouring countries.

John Frederick, author of FallenAngels: The Sex Workers of South Asia,caused a stir three years ago when he