Africa
Development, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, 2012, pp. 193– 207
© Council for the
Development of Social Science Research in Africa, 2012
(ISSN 0850-3907)
Forced into Adulthood: An Exploration of
Psycho-Social
Dynamics in Child-headed Households
Bernadette Muyomi*
Abstract
Child-headed households are a common family
arrangement in the coastal region of Kenya and beyond. These households are
mainly precipitated by situations in the lives of parents that force children
to take up social roles that are usually reserved for adults. While children
have rights just like adults, their well-being is compromised without parents’
involvement in their lives because of missing parental obligations. Children in
child-headed households are forced to handle responsibilities that are not
appropriate for their developmental age, often denying them a sense of
childhood comfort and burdening them emotionally, socially and psychologically.
Such children end up with numerous psychosocial challenges, including low self
esteem, early marriages, exposure to child labour, prostitution, trafficking
and social exclusion, among others. The situation is a vicious cycle, bound to
recur since such children also become parents at an early age. This paper uses
data from coastal Kenya to show the inevitability of child-headed households
and the need to treat such households as part of the larger repertoire of
nuclear family set ups in the society.
Key Words:
Psycho-social dynamics; child-headed households; alternative family units
Résumé
Les foyers dont le chef est un enfant sont une forme
d’organisation familiale que l’on trouve assez fréquemment sur la région
côtière du Kenya et au-delà. La plupart de ces foyers sont le fait d’événements
inattendus survenus dans la vie des parents et qui obligent les enfants à
assumer des rôles sociaux normalement dévolus aux adultes. Si les enfants ont
en principe des droits au même titre que les adultes, leur bien-être se trouve
néanmoins compromis sans l’implication des parents dans leur vie ; ils sont
ainsi privés des devoirs parentaux à leur égard. Les enfants des foyers dirigés
par un enfant sont obligés d’assumer des responsabilités incompatibles avec
leur âge. De ce fait, ils ne peuvent souvent profiter du confort insouciant de
l’enfance, révélant ainsi un poids émotionnel,
* Action Aid International,
Kenya. Email: muyomibright@yahoo.com
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social et psychologique dont ils
souffrent. Ces enfants finissent par développer plusieurs types de troubles
psychosociaux dont notamment la perte d’estime de soi, le mariage précoce, la
vulnérabilité au travail, à la prostitution, au trafic d’enfants et à
l’exclusion sociale. Il s’agit d’un cercle vicieux et forcément récurrent, dans
la mesure où ces enfants eux-mêmes deviendront aussi des parents à un jeune
âge.
Introduction
The Kenyan Coast is a high
tourist destination (Akama 1999; Dieke 1991; Sindiga 1999) with the majority of
the activities around the coast related to tourism and use of natural resources
around the beaches and other marine bio-life. One prevalent source of
livelihood for many in this region is fishing (Ochiewo 2004). Many people also
explore the ocean for shells that they easily hawk to tourists and local
visitors at the coast as others are involved in mining activities especially in
Kwale, Kilifi, Mombasa and Magarini districts. With the prevalence of tourism
and other forms of socioeconomic activities along the coast, there is a general
assumption that employment can easily be found there, and that tourists will
readily spend money on simple chores like local tour guiding and domestic work.
As a result many people migrate from other parts of the country to seek
employment in the tourism industry only to arrive and realize that there are
few lucrative economic opportunities available (Oucho 2007). In reality, the
majority of the jobs available are casual jobs like working on mining farms,
domestic work, small scale businesses and basic beach operations. These jobs
provide very meagre pay and often force individuals to consider alternative
livelihood sustaining mechanisms, some of which are quasi-legal such as
commercial sex work and making local brews. This mismatch between expected
economic boom and the reality of low paying jobs leads to a number of social
challenges including high rates of poverty, HIV/AIDS and family disintegration
that have left many children without the care of parents. This has contributed
to the existence of child-headed households.
The 2001
Children’s Act of Kenya1 defines a child as a human being under
the age of eighteen years while a child of tender age to be one below the age
of ten. Our research confirmed that there are many households with individuals
that fit this definition who have full control over their households. Children
in these households assume an adult role of nurturing, fending and caring for
themselves and others. These households provide a new model of the nuclear
family that contradicts traditional African child rearing practices where
children are fitted in an extended family setting and taken care of by an
adult, even in the event that they lost both parents. This is not to say that
there are no traditional familial or organized systems of taking care of
children
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in the coast region. However, a
number of interacting factors have triggered the emergence of these kinds of
households that call upon social scientists to rethink the nature and structure
of the African family.
For a long time, parents and guardians
have been considered a mandatory figure in the lives of children. With
socioeconomic, political, and even structural changes as witnessed during the
course of our research for this project, this notion is changing as some
children enter into social arrangements where they are able to live alone and
still make ends meet. What needs to be explored are a few issues, including,
first, whether this is a comfortable setting for children considering the
implications of taking up responsibilities before their rightfully perceived
developmental stage for these kinds of tasks. Second, is the need to understand
the development issues that children encounter because of these circumstances
and ask whether they are forced to undergo various development stages at the
same time or if they miss out on some of the stages; and third, how this
affects their lives even when they become adults. Granted, children and parents
have distinct roles and responsibilities that are outlined in the 2001
Children’s Act of Kenya as follows:
(1)… ‘parental responsibility’ means
all the duties, rights, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a
parent of a child has in relation to the child and the child’s property in a
manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.
(2) The duties referred to in subsection (1) include in
particular-
(a) the
duty to maintain the child and in particular to provide him with:
(i) adequate
diet;
(ii) shelter;
(iii) clothing;
(iv) medical
care including immunization; and
(v) education
and guidance;
(b) the
duty to protect the child from neglect, discrimination and abuse;(c) the right
to
(i) give
parental guidance in religious, moral, social, cultural and othervalues;
(ii) determine
the name of the child; (iii) appoint a guardian in respect of the child; (iv)
enforcement of rights.
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This Act emphasizes the role of parents in the lives of
children and confirms that children in child-headed households are overwhelmed
by responsibilities that are not rightfully theirs even when they cannot avoid
them. In this paper I explore the various realities of child-headed households
and the ways in which they assist us in understanding the changing nature of
the African family, especially when it comes to the role of parents in
socializing children into members of their communities.
Methods used to Collect the Data
Data for the study were collected through structured
interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation. Two-hundred
and fifty children were interviewed in the study in Magarini, Kilifi, Malindi,
Kwale and Mombasa districts in Kenya’s coastal province. Further, eight social
workers from different organizations within the coast province were also
involved in a focus group discussion that focussed on the psycho-social
dynamics of children in child-headed households. The social workers were also
engaged in participant observations on 24 selected households in the mentioned
areas.
Child-headed Households as Stable Social Units
As child protection systems are
emphasized by the government through the children’s department and by both
local and international organizations, childheaded households are gradually
gaining stability and semi-independence. With various organizations focusing on
different areas supporting children such as educational sponsorship and
provision of other basic needs, many children are finding a way to fend for
themselves even in the absence of parents. Social workers from various
organizations actively offer such services as guidance and counselling and link
children to essential health care services through government and private
facilities. Some parts of the coastal region in Kenya rely on relief food and
children in child-headed households are given priority where they are known to
the local administration. It is rare to find children with malnutrition at the
Kenyan coast because of the availability of certain foods that provide a
balanced diet. Fruits like mangoes, paw paws, pineapples and coconuts grow
readily in different parts of the region. Wild vegetables can also be found
easily, while fish is accessible to those who live near the Indian Ocean
shores. Children are able to get starch from rice, maize meal and cassava which
are staple foods at the coast. All these go to show that eve when children are
living in households where they do not have adult care and supervision, they
are likely to survive. The existence of these households is propelled by
various interacting dynamics that affect the day-to-day lives of people in the
coastal region including diseases, access to land, imprisonment, and peer
influence, as discussed here below.
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Diseases
HIV/AIDS continues to claim many
lives in sub-Saharan Africa. The Kenyan coast in particular has high rates of
HIV/AIDS infection because of its focus and often dependence on the tourist
industry. While the industry does provide a large share of the national income
it ‘has failed to deliver significant benefits and employment for host
communities’, and as a result exacerbated and increased the vulnerability of
children to sexual exploitation (Jones 2006:vi). The area has also attracted
many employment seekers and has many fisher folk, a high prevalence of
commercial sex workers (both children and adults) and intravenous drug users,
all of whom are most at risk of contracting HIV. These risky socioeconomic
practices often lead to the death of both parents leaving children to fend for
themselves. With poverty levels at the Kenyan coast going as high as 65 percent
in some districts,2 it is not unusual for a family to consider it
economically burdensome to take care of HIV/AIDS orphans because of high
treatment and nutrition costs. As some scholars have shown, ‘in communities
where death due to AIDS has forced many adolescents to take on adult roles, the
transition from childhood to adulthood is disappearing’ (Ondimu 2005:5). While
it is common practice and even expected that orphaned children will be taken in
by relatives, migrant families that have kin in other parts of the country
present some challenges for these children. Indeed it may be that some orphaned
children may find it hard to migrate back to their ancestral homes if their
parents had migrated to the coast and had claims of home in another location in
the country. Moreover, some of the children are born after the parents have
moved from their ancestral homes and may not be known to their kin and vice versa.
As a result, these children do not have any attachments to their families. As
some of our focus group discussions revealed, many children can have a stronger
bond with neighbours as compared to their relatives, some of whom they are
likely not to have ever seen.
When it comes
to legal considerations, however, the children can only be taken care of by a
close family member in the event that their parents are not there. Non-family
members are discouraged from taking care of children who are not related to due
to the current complicated procedures of adoption, fostering or giving
guardianship that are stipulated in the country’s laws on child care. It is for
such reasons that most of the children prefer to remain in their homes and take
care of their household than go live with relatives. Even when communities may
have local mechanisms of taking care of such children, those children whose
parents migrated from another part of the country may not benefit much since
they are seen as foreigners and not beneficiaries of community resources. This
is closely linked to the fact that the majority of the parents are likely to
have been casual workers and
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considered a minority in the community they live. Stigma
also affects the response of individuals towards HIV/AIDS orphans. Some people
assume that their own family members are likely to be infected if they interact
closely with HIV/AIDS orphans. This limits the chances of orphaned children
being prioritized in their immediate community and in traditional social protection
mechanisms.
Access to Land
The land question within the Kenyan Coast is complex due to
its peculiar historical and legal origins. The process of land adjudication and
registration under the Land Titles Act (Cap 292) in Kenya deprived many members
of the indigenous Coastal communities of their land. This led to the area
having the largest single concentration of landless indigenous people living as
squatters. It also gave rise to the problem of absentee landowners (Session
Paper 3 of 2009 on the National Land Policy)3.
These loopholes make it easy for
children to settle in a given place where they put up simple shelters with no
one evicting them from the land. Moreover most of the traditional coastal
houses are made from locally available materials – mud walls and the roofs from
pine leaves – making it easy for these children to construct their own shelter
inexpensively. With the availability of warm and friendly weather almost year
round, it is also easy for children to live without the need of much covering
to protect them from harsh weather. Those living around the ocean can fish for
food. These factors together with availability of food in some places make it
easy for children to survive in a subsistence way, despite the absence of their
parents.
Imprisonment
Children have also been left
without parents who may have been sentenced to spend time in prison for both
criminal and civil cases. This is likely to happen if the parents of the
children have relocated to the coast from a different place, leading them to
being socially excluded by other community members who often label them in
relation to the crimes that their parents committed. Sometimes parents are
jailed because of reasons related to the children, leaving their children
without a parental figure. This reality was expressed in focus group
discussions with the social workers, who revealed that they were giving
psycho-social support to children who were living alone because their parents
were sentenced to jail for a crime related to their children, such as
defilement, child neglect or even physical abuse. Quite often these children
are shunned by family members who perceive them as traitors and inconsiderate
to their parents. The situation is made even worse when the children are
witnesses in court testifying against their parents.
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Given this complex social relationship, as our focus group
discussions revealed, many families choose to downplay or even not report at
all any cases of abuse to child protection authorities. They instead prefer to
solve the issues amicably and will not treat the children involved kindly,
should the children cooperate with authorities to pursue the cases legally.
Should the children get support from the authorities, family members refuse to
provide for them while the parents are serving their sentences and even
discourage those who are willing to help them for fear of being shunned from
the extended family. It is not uncommon for organizations to step in and offer
to assist these children through the provision of basic needs and education,
but their relatives will often not support them and may even take away the
things they are given and use them for their own personal gain. This kind of
frustration makes the children choose to leave their homes and begin surviving
on their own as they enjoy relative peace.
Negative Modelling from Peers
Some of the children interviewed ran away from home and
quit school because of what they considered extreme pressure to meet academic
obligations from their parents. Some of the children said that they perceive
working on the beach as an option since they may be lucky enough to meet
foreigners from the West who would provide resources that would transform their
lives. To this end some hang around the beach and wait for tourists to come by,
and earn their living from giving tourists directions on the beach, or take
tourists for boat rides to see fish in the deep ocean. They may also be
involved in illicit business like selling drugs and even prostitution. In the
course of all these, there are those who get married or end up in close
intimate relationships where their partners provide for them fully. This kind
of lifestyle is often discouraged by many parents who acknowledge the negative
consequences of such behaviour. The children consider it a short cut to getting
the life they desire and hence run away from home to pursue this life. It is
through these and other related issues that we find many childheaded households
in Kenya’s coastal region. Such tasks of heading households for children maybe
the only or even a better option for many children but they do come with many
psycho-social challenges as we will see below. Some of the psycho-social
challenges push children further into autonomy and increase the number of
households with no adult caregivers.
Psycho-social Issues of Children in Child-headed
Households
Children, adolescents and adults
differ from each other in their style of thought, emotional experience and
expression, and behaviour (Corey 2005). Children and adolescents tend to manifest
several of the thought styles
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associated with cognitive
distortions in adults. Dichotomous thinking, overinclusive thought, idealized
rather than realistic appraisal of situations, and catastrophic thought are
common among young people (Dattilio & Freeman 2000). The realization that
children can make ends meet against all odds can boost their self esteem and
motivate them to find solace in the kind of life they live. As Maxwell notes,
‘When children experience breakthroughs, they’re able to move further down the
road toward the fulfilment of their full potential. Sometimes, the breakthrough
enables them to choose the better fork in the road. Other times, the
breakthrough allows them to overcome an obstacle or potential obstacle with
relative ease, and it gives them an extra burst of energy that speeds them on
their journey’ (Maxwell 1996:4). But often, it is reason enough to harbour
anger, vengeance and despair in life in retaliation to their experience. This
raises the questions: Do the circumstances of children in child-headed
households magnify or compromise their dignity as children and what is the
worth of a parent in a child’s life? While a child is entitled to his or her
basic human rights just like an adult, there are limitations that arise because
a child is below the age of consent for many issues. A child cannot represent
him/herself in certain areas, making it a hindrance to the full realization of
his/her rights. A child cannot fully engage in work or access financial
services, among other challenges. Even free and mandatory services like health
care, are usually given through the National Health Insurance Fund, upon
provision of a parent’s identification documents. Children’s rights cannot be
isolated from parental responsibilities. This makes it difficult for children
to depend wholly on themselves and enjoy their lives in the absence of a parent
or guardian. Children in childheaded households undergo various psycho-social
challenges where they are not only burdened with the stress of fending for
themselves but also with the challenge of medical care, social exclusion and
violation of basic rights.
In
traditional African culture, children who lose both parents are taken care of
by other immediate family members. Usually, different relatives opt to stay
with the children and to provide for them. The children grow up with their own
relatives without necessarily going through cumbersome legal adoption
procedures. In Kenya for example, according to the nations Children’s Act of
2001, adoption orders are only issued by the High Court of Kenya and not any
lower court. Once issued, the order is served on the Registrar-General
(Marriages and Adoptions Office) for entry into the Adopted Children’s Register
and issuance of the Adoption Certificate. If the parents had property, it is
given to the selected people to manage it on behalf of the children. Sometimes
the children are not even aware of the property, nor do they understand their
entitlement to it. As a result, they do not follow
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up on it even once they become
adults. The property may be sold before the children attain the age of consent,
or the children may simply be sidelined during the sharing of the property. On
realizing that they have been cheated by their relatives some children move
from their patrimonial home and live alone. Seventeen households involved in
this study, for instance, reported mistreatment from extended family members
after the death of both parents.
When children are left by their parents
for whatever reason they become vulnerable to employment practices even as they
take advantage of the available labour market (though illegal). According to
2007 findings on the worst forms of child labour in Kenya
… children primarily work in the informal sector. They
work, often with their families, in subsistence and commercial agriculture, on
tea, coffee, rice, and sugar plantations. Children also work in herding and in
fisheries. Children also work in domestic service, construction, transport,
quarries, and mines, including gold mines. In urban areas, some street children
are children who managed to escape from abusive domestic service situations.4
Children are engaged in
commercial sexual exploitation and are reported to engage in prostitution in
bars, discos, brothels, massage parlours, and on the streets. While the
majority of children exploited in prostitution are between 13 and 17 years,
children as young as nine are reported to be involved. Many girls who hawk or
beg during the day reportedly engage in prostitution at night (Jones 2006). In
the agricultural sector, girls are sometimes forced to provide sexual services
in order to obtain plantation work. Sudanese and Somali refugee children are
also alleged to be involved in prostitution in Kenya. The growth of the tourism
industry has been accompanied by an increase in children’s involvement in
prostitution, including in the coastal towns of Malindi, Mombasa, Kilifi, and
Diani.
In their
responses to questions about livelihood opportunities posed during interviews
for this study, children who work in salt mines were not aware of their rights
as labourers and worked without realizing that they were being exploited. Many
consider it a privilege rather than a violation of their rights to be employed.
When children work to provide for themselves, they automatically fail to go to
school and are not able to enjoy their right to education. During participant
observation sessions, children from childheaded households were found to spend
so much time looking for money that they did not get time to play and socialize
with other children as compared to children from parent-headed households. Some
undergo physical bodily harm, some of which may even cause them to be
physically compromised or even lead to disabilities, more so if they are
exposed to heavy labour and to toxic substances as it is in urban areas where
children pick scrap metal
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for sale that exposes them to tetanus. Even if employed
these children are not given medical insurance cover by their employers.
Children in such situations undergo intense self pity and feelings of
helplessness when preoccupied with the thoughts of providing for themselves.
Many despair and end up in depression. However, children are not to be blamed
for this predicament. At times parents involve their own children to work on
the farms and mines. In our study, 43 children working in the salt mines on a
weekday were interviewed in the Magarini salt mines at Gongoni sublocation.
Some of the children interviewed had this to say:
There is no need of staying with a parent if you can
also provide for yourself just like they do.
When I come out here to help, I
feel good because we can get more food at
home…
I would rather tire on the farm for myself than to
contribute to the family because I still can’t get everything I need from home.
While some children were found to
be working alongside their parents, others had chosen to work independently and
use the money on themselves rather than to pool their money to a family basket.
There are other forms of work that lead
to child exploitation and call for more intervention from adults. Child
prostitution is a common phenomenon at the coast even despite the intervention
of various stakeholders on how to mitigate the menace. ‘The children who sell
sexual favours to tourists tend not to be a homogeneous group. Sex work is
transient and mobile and children will move to where there are greater
opportunities, particularly children orphaned or forced to leave home for
economic or other reasons’ (Jones 2006).
Child-headed households can partially be attributed to this. Children
are highly vulnerable because they are considered cheaper sexual prey as
compared to adults. In the study conducted 86 children aged between 11 and 17
confessed to be repeatedly involved in sexual intercourse in exchange of food
(for themselves alone or the entire household), clothing or money. Similarly,
it is worth noting that incentives are not the only reasons for children to be
involved in prostitution. Many children may be exposed to sexual exploitation
when they seek out opportunities that can offer them a sense of belonging. As I
have shown elsewhere
... poor interpersonal relationships at home can cause
learners to have close interpersonal relationships with their peers, teachers
or other people. Everybody needs a place to belong. The first ideal place where
one should get love is at home. In the absence of love at home, an individual
finds himself clinging to any other relationship that will provide this feeling
of belonging and acceptance (Muyomi 2009:51).
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When not lured into prostitution
some children, especially girls, are likely to consider marriage as an option
of solace for themselves and their siblings. Responding to the question of what
options they are considering to improve their well-being, a girl of 14 years
responded: ‘At this juncture I find it better to get married then move to my
home with the younger children. I would not turn down an offer from an
understanding man’.
When they get
married, their siblings move with them to their matrimonial home. They mix and
play with other children in the home and also contribute to the day to day
activities of the home like tilling their garden, fetching water and even
babysitting. In exchange for these services, they receive accommodation and
food. Children in such marriages are, however, highly prone to abuse. According
to a study by UNICEF’s Innocenti Research Centre, ‘women who married at younger
ages were more likely to believe that it is sometimes acceptable for a husband
to beat his wife and were more likely to experience domestic violence
themselves’.5 Their spouses are usually aware of their
dependence and may take advantage of the fact that the children do not have a
home to return to. This was pointed out by four
respondents in our study who had been married then left the marriage
after their spouses turned abusive. One respondent said, ‘He kept on reminding
me that he was everything to me and I had nowhere to go. He forgot that he
found me living alone with my siblings and we were not going through the kind
of mistreatment he was exposing me to’. Children do not have the authority to
protect them from getting married no matter their age and child rights abusers
take advantage of this loophole. During focus group discussion, the social
workers participating mentioned that the inability to negotiate for a dowry was
another factor that may predispose children to marriage at an early age.
Cultural demands of making this commitment are less since the children may not
have anyone to negotiate on their behalf. Such children may therefore be
considered an easy prey for marriage.
Another area
of concern is education. In Kenya, it is easy for children in child-headed
households to access basic education since it is free (Mondah and Ngo’ngah
2004). In rural areas, it is even easier since there is little emphasis on
correct school uniform because of the high levels of poverty. This is helped by
the fact that the children are likely to get assistance from various
organizations that meet the academic needs of children. The greatest challenge
that these children are likely to experience is the lack of parental
involvement in their education. Such children may also not get much attention
from teachers who are aware that there is no parent to follow up on the
academic performance of the child. The children may also be ridiculed by others
during play and may be intimidated when others laugh at them for not having
parents. From our research, we noted that despite free primary
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education in Kenya, many children
aged between five and nine were not attending school for various reasons
including mockery from other children and the persistence of teachers that
children should bring their parents to school for various reasons. We also
noted in our participant observation sessions that most of the children who
were socially withdrawn during child play were children from child-headed
households. Out of 180 children observed, 57 were socially withdrawn and 32 of
them were from childheaded households.
In other
cases we also noted that older children had to forfeit their own education to
allow younger ones to attend school, not because they understand the
significance of education in the lives of their siblings, but because of
certain factors articulated by respondents at our interviews. First, older
children get time to engage in socio-economic activities without thinking of
the safety of the younger ones who may wander off to play. Second, those
engaged in dehumanizing and embarrassing activities like child prostitution do
not want to expose it to younger children. Moreover, some schools have feeding
programmes that assure some children of eating at least one meal a day, simply
by being there. As studies in other parts of the country have shown, ‘The
effects of the school meal programme on the well-being of rural Kenyans cannot
be overstated. Through providing daily meals, schools are able to meet
immediate food needs, provide future safety nets, and offer long-term
assistance and empowerment to children, families, and communities’ (Langinger
2011:36).
Children are
pushed to criminal activities for survival when they lack a way out. They may
be involved in petty theft or even be used by adults to engage in more serious
crimes for which they are rewarded with money or exchange of other basic needs.
One of the children interviewed said, ‘You cannot just sit and watch your
siblings suffering when you have a way of helping them’. Social workers also
revealed that at least one of the children in the child-headed households they
were supporting had been involved in crime, mostly theft, to support his/her
siblings. This becomes a habit and even though the children may not face
serious charges and consequences because they are children protected by the law
they will later face minor juvenile charges or even be put on probation.
Children
receive a lot of social, physical and psychological security from parents. But
a lack of this assurance makes a child feel handicapped, uncertain of his own
abilities, fearful and therefore on the defensive. When failing to provide
emotional security to the children, parents cause unhappiness, lack of loyalty
and tension (Wanda 2007:53). Children from child-headed households are likely
to miss this kind of security. They develop defence
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mechanisms to protect themselves
such as aggressive behaviour when they play with other children as noted in our
participant observation sessions. The remote awareness that they have to stand
up for themselves makes them aggressive in order to control the situations
around them. This way they become bullies. As Crosson-Tower highlights the
residual effects of family maltreatment leads having difficulty trusting
others, having low self esteem, anger, impaired objects relation, impaired
parenting abilities, lowered intelligence, impaired development, verbal
inaccessibility, inability to play, difficulty with relationships, abuse of
alcohol and drugs and perception of powerlessness (Crosson 2000:374).
Children from
child-headed households are also targets of child trafficking where they become
domestic workers or used as sex pets. When perceived to be desperate and in
need of basic needs, they become all the more vulnerable to this predatory
behaviour. As noted by other scholars, such children are vulnerable to being
misused because, ‘In an attempt to preserve what resources they retain, they
become passive or withdrawn and tend to seek reassurance from others’ (Dattilio
and Arthur Freeman 2000:67). The people who entice such children either employ
them directly or give them out to work for other people while receiving the
payment on behalf of the child. In the end they do not use this money to
benefit these children.
Loss of human dignity brought by these
experiences of abuse interferes with the self worth and self concept of
children. When they are required to provide for themselves at an early age,
survivors of neglect might be expected to develop some degree of proficiency.
Although past victims demonstrate an ability to survive despite incredible
odds, they lack a true sense of trust in themselves. Not only have they lacked
encouragement and stimulation to develop a positive self image but they have
modelled themselves as parents who thought little of themselves also
(Crosson-Tower 2005). Children are in several cases forced to go without some
basic provisions, something which compromises their dignity. For example, some
female children do not wear inner linen or use sanitary towels because of the
opportunity costs involved. They are forced to choose between buying food and
other basic provisions and their personal needs. Such difficult situations can
make children grow up with feelings of bitterness and may be at times
overwhelmed when faced with other challenges.
Conclusion and Recommendations
It is clear that there are
situations in which the existence of child-headed households cannot easily be
avoided, and that some of these social arrangements are successful in their own
right. There is a need, therefore,
206
to recognize this as a family unit that needs to be
supported in the absence of the traditional form of family where parents or
adult guardians are present. Scholars and practitioners in children’s issues
are encouraged to rethink assumptions about children being powerless and
incapable of assisting themselves. This does not, however, mean that
child-headed households should be encouraged as a new form of social
arrangement but that they be recognized as possible sites for child
socialization that can act as bridges to adulthood or to traditional family set
ups. Rather than discouraging them or being oblivious to their existence
scholars and caregivers alike ought to seek ways of providing psycho-social
support for children in such households. Moreover, organizations that assist
such children should not only focus on the material needs of such children, but
also on their psycho-social well being through the provision of counselling and
mentoring programmes. Although children can live without the direct involvement
of parents, the significance of parents’ involvement in the lives of children
cannot be ignored. The failure of parental guidance exposes children to many
challenges and unless this cycle is broken, more child-headed households will
emerge.
Notes
1. Children’s
Act of Kenya, 2001.
2. See Coast
Rights Forum for statistics of poverty in Malindi districtat
http:/coastrightsforum.orgindex.php?option=com_
content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=43.
3. Ministry of
Lands, Government of Kenya, Session Paper 3 of the NationalLand Policy 2009,
available at http://www.lands.go.ke/
index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=81&Itemid=46.
4. See
Findings on the worst forms of labour at,
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,USDOL,,KEN,456d621e2,48caa47941,0.html.
5. See,
UNICEF, 2005, ‘Early Marriage: A Harmful Traditional Practice’, availableat
www.unicef.org/publications/files/Early_Marriage_12.lo.pdf.
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