A Qualitative Analysis of Adolescent Girls' Views on Relationships with Influential Men

Adolescent girls bear disproportionate vulnerabilities due to GBV, including rape and other forms of sexual abuse. Some asset building programs for adolescent girls have focused on girls' wellbeing without taking an ecological approach to consider other spheres of influence in the lives of girls. This paper analyzes key segments of males that influence adolescent girls lives and how, and describes changes that adolescent girls would like to see in these males. Data was collected through 16 focus group discussions with 98 participants who were in-school adolescent girls, out of school adolescent girls with kids and without kids, mothers of adolescent girls and female program mentors selected from locations in two low income urban sites in Nairobi and Nakuru, Kenya.

The main male influencers were male family members (father, uncles, brothers), friends and neighbors, boyfriends, classmates, motorbike-taxi operators, thieves and drug dealers, and sugar daddies. The negative influences outweighed the positive ones, with most influences propagated due to lack of role models, poverty, and peer pressure among other issues. These findings will be used to design a program whose overall goal will be to improve relationship dynamics, and improve gender norms among young women and men to reduce GBV.