Competing Ideas on Adolescent Girls’ Sexuality: Mandatory Pregnancy Screening in Secondary Boarding Schools in Kenya

A central challenge in achieving sexual and reproductive well-being of adolescent girls is in realising girls’ sexual and reproductive rights. Moreover, early pregnancy among in-school adolescent girls threatens their financial and social stability. Mandatory pregnancy screening is one way through which some secondary boarding schools in Kenya attempt to tackle in-school adolescent pregnancies. This research consists of a discussion of international human rights law and normative socio-cultural perspectives, in order to analyze conflicting understandings of adolescent girls’ sexuality as depicted in mandatory pregnancy screening in secondary boarding schools in Kenya. Universal human rights law is skewed towards individualistic construction of adolescent girls’ sexuality and emphasize sexual autonomy; while socio-cultural perceptions are community centred and emphasize girls’ dangerous sexuality. Nevertheless, as recognized in international, regional and national legal instruments, this research concludes that mandatory pregnancy screening violates the sexual and reproductive health rights of adolescent girls by limiting their freedom to choice, right to education and privacy. Drawing from in-depth interviews in Nairobi, this research also illuminates ways through which the sexuality of adolescent girls is socio-culturally constructed as: dangerous; in need control and protection and; driven by purity. In utilizing the disciplinary technique of mandatory pregnancy screening, boarding schools control the sexuality of adolescent girls. Findings also address the ways through which adolescent girls adopt or counter the various constructions of their sexuality through exercising agency. Thus, this paper calls on the government of Kenya to: abolish mandatory pregnancy screening of girls in secondary boarding schools and; make strides towards eliminating gender stereotyped norms in order to balance females’ and males’ responsibilities towards prevention of early pregnancies. Moreover, this research recommends that adolescents require safe sex education to adequately protect themselves from harmful health related outcomes of sexual intercourse.