The Power Of Self-Expression
Both teenaged girls and boys lack access to information on issues affecting their lives and have limited spaces to develop competencies crucial for active participation in social and economic arenas. Teenage girls face multiple layers of vulnerability due to the domination of patriarchal structures and values, which affecting the ability of girls and women to make decisions. They experience power imbalances in their lives in different ways, which is also impacted by where they live, their education and access to health services, sexuality, social status that flows from ethnicity, caste or religion, and more.
Thus, as girls emerge as young women around the age of 15 years they are pulled out of schools and are forced to start work often in the informal sector. This is a phenomenon that is exacerbated exponentially in times of crisis, as was seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Apart from early employment, early marriage also traps young women in poverty, restricting access to education. While there is inadequate support and access for young girls to manage their health and wellbeing, this situation is made worse when they enter the job marker or are married.
All the above facts make it even more important to educate and empower adolescent girls and build the agency of teenage girls as informed and active participants in the process of empowerment. It is important to develop skills of vulnerable girls and bring their voices more prominently to the public domain so that they can impact policies and programmes concerning them now and in the future. Such initiatives must be led by girls and young women to ensure that efforts are made to organize capacity building and exposure visits engaging peer support leaders and ensuring girls’ participation and skill-building in marginalized communities.
Girls and young women are emerging as an assertive constituency now. They are choosing to study, delaying their marriage to reach their aspirations. Girls and young women are standing up to and speaking up against violence, of all kinds. They are demanding redistribution of care work at home. On the strength of their collectives, they are claiming rights in public spaces. These are just some examples of what girls and women have now opted for as part of their path to finding their voices through empowerment and assured self-expression. Let us all make efforts to continue to strengthen the constituency who are leaders of today and tomorrow.
