‘They are a shame to the community … ’ stigma, school attendance, solitude and resilience among pregnant teenagers and teenage mothers in Mahama refugee camp, Rwanda

ABSTRACT

Mahama refugee camp in Rwanda, whose population is predominately Burundian, has registered a rapid rise in pregnancies among girls between 13 and 15 years. In Rwanda, pregnant girls are encouraged to remain in school as long as their health and the health of the child is not jeopardised. Yet this study found that the majority of pregnant teenagers and teen mothers in Mahama are not in school due to the stigma associated with teenage pregnancy. This paper describes how pregnant teenagers and teen mothers experience stigma in terms of solitude and isolation. I draw on Bourdieusian theories of capital to expand on the analysis of solitude, to highlight how teen mothers use this solitude or isolation to rebuild their self-esteem and the symbolic capital which they lose when they become pregnant. The study suggests that despite the existence of a policy guaranteeing certain rights to girls, closer attention should be paid to the contextual barriers that may hinder pregnant teenagers or teen mothers from exercising these rights.

KEYWORDS:

• Teenage pregnancy
• social stigma
• solitude
• school attendance
• symbolic capital

Acknowledgements

I owe a special thanks to the research participants in Mahama refugee camp who participated in this research, trusted me, and shared with me their stories, which led to the arguments made in this paper. Thanks also go to Lidewyde Berckmoes and Ria Reis, as well as the anonymous reviewers at Global Public Health for their helpful feedback and critiques on earlier drafts of this article. I finally thank the University of Amsterdam, particularly the Department of Anthropology, for their support of this research.

Data availability statement

Data from this study are available from the author upon request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The EAC is an intergovernmental organisation composed of six countries in the African Great Lakes region: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

2 As of 24 January 2018, there were approximately 88,000 Burundians registered in Mahama refugee camp (UNHCR, 2018).

3 Such household variations were due to the political situation in Burundi, where not everyone faced persecution. It was thus quite common to find that only a few members of a family had fled while others remained.

4 An official language of Burundi, belonging to the Bantu language family.

5 For inclusion purposes, I always instructed my research assistants to invite and compose ethnically-mixed groups for the FGDs.

6 Save the Children is an international NGO with a focus on child protection services. It is one of the NGOs operating in the camp.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research – Science for Global Development [NWO-WOTRO, project W 08.560.004].