Youth voices from an informal settlement of Nairobi, Kenya: Engaging adolescent perspectives on violence to inform prevention

ABSTRACT

We examined the experiences of violence and self-reported behavioural and community changes as a result of participation in a sexual assault prevention intervention in an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. We conducted longitudinal qualitative in-depth interviews with 20 adolescent girls and 11 adolescent boys at baseline, 12, and 24 months. Analysis was thematic with two investigators coding and reaching consensus about the themes. Participants’ ages ranged from 10 to 13 at baseline; girls’ mean age was 11.9, boys’ mean age was 11.6. Participants reported experiencing high levels of violence at all stages of the study. Most reported feeling more empowered to protect themselves and others from sexual assault because of the intervention. While participants had mixed responses about change in sexual assault incidence, most perceived an improvement in inter-gender relationships after the intervention. Participants at midline and endline cited acquaintances and friends as potential perpetrators of sexual violence more often than at baseline and were more open to reporting violent incidents. The very young adolescents in this setting perceived that this sexual assault prevention intervention led to improvements in gender relations, adolescent girls’ empowerment and, recognition of harmful rape myths.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02771132.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual assault
• prevention
• adolescents
• low-and-middle-income countries
• violence

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the study participants for their time and contribution as well, the Stanford University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences for training data collectors in trauma-informed interviewing, and our partners at the African Institute of Health and Development.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the South African Medical Research Council through the What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls Programme [grant number #52069] as a result of the support obtained from the Secretary of State for International Development at the Department for International Development, UK Government. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of the Secretary of State for International Development at the Department for International Development or the South African Medical Research Council.