Shame, humiliation and hazard: tribulations of the girl child in Kenya

I have approached my presentation as a lamentation by a girl appropriately name ‘Hope’. This lamentation involves actual experiences that were told to me by girls and women in Northern Eastern Kenya recently when I was engaged in the EU-UNICEF project on Sustainable Water Management and Governance for the Poor in Drought and Flood-prone areas. Hope talks of the poor water and sanitation facilities in schools in Kenya. She explains how girls miss classes to fetch water or simply because they are menstruating and cannot afford sanitary pads. Through her two sisters-one deceased and the other dying of HIV-AIDS, Hope also narrates the hazards that a girl child is exposed to and the humiliation of having to wait until night fall to go to the toilet. Lastly Hope sets out possible solutions that she views as appropriate in the circumstances.