Summary of OVC Research

This is a summary of the main part of my research, examining the future predictions and life goals of adolescent OVCs, specifically in the areas of education/career, family structure, and HIV. It also appears as a chapter in a joint UNICEF-University of Botswana publication entitled ‘Thari ya Bana: Reflections on Children in Botswana‘ on page 63-68 (which you can read more about at http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/botswana_57506.html).

If you have any questions or suggestions, or requests for my inclusive research in its entirety, please feel free to leave a ‘comment’ – I won’t make it public unless explicitly requested.

Social workers’ thoughts on sexual abuse

One social worker (female) talked about how to counsel and support OVCs after they have experienced sexual abuse:

“I referred one to a psychologist but [s/he] didn’t want to see the psychologist and only attended one session. Counseling is not easy, one has to be patient: understand their pain and sometimes you do not have to say anything much, you just have to show them support. Confidentiality is more important to them. You cannot go and tell their families what’s going on without their knowledge or consent. I usually confirm more than two times with the child: ‘Are you sure you want to do this, should I tell your family about this?’ Sometimes the child will say, ‘You can go ahead and tell them’ and suddenly they will change their mind and say ‘I don’t want my family to know,’ so it’s a very long process, and you should respect that until the child is fully ready to disclose to other family members or to anyone that there are close to, you can’t go ahead and do that yourself.”

Regarding her ways to help counsel the OVCs, she employs more than typical conventional methods: “I have also used a bit of art therapy, allowing the children to keep journals, to draw, and that is how they express themselves. It is very therapeutic because they are often not able to [communicate] in words but they can express it through drawing and writing. I usually leave them in a counseling room alone so that they can express themselves freely and I leave a note by the door to let everybody know that there is a counseling session in progress. When they are through, I allow them to share what they have written or drawn with me if they want to, and if they want to keep that to themselves I respect that as well, because… on its own it can be therapeutic enough to remove from their system and put it down in writing.”

A guidance counselor (female) says that most of the counseling she gives is about sexual abuse, “especially the girls,” and “it’s usually older men, sometimes they are family members, sometimes they’re not.” The girls she advises are ages 12-18 overall, but most are on the lower end of that range. She says that these experiences are often part of a difficult background, and emphasizes the fact that there is usually a shebeen, or local bar, in the homestead. She also stated that these adolescents have lower maturity for someone their age, yet they are sexually active from a very young age, around 10-13 years. She added, “Usually the girl children are the ones who get [sexually] involved at an earlier age, but at times they are sexually abused at a very early age and as a result, the child also starts having [consensual] sex earlier.”

I asked another social worker (female) why she thought sexual abuse was so common, and she said, “It is partly because of alcohol. Also, the ladies here in Botswana generally get involved for the materials they will get from the men, and won’t report the matter.” She believes there’s also an important power dynamic, with OVCs. “Those people that do abuse these kids actually think they are supporting them, so they have the right to do whatever they want because they will be telling the kid, ‘If you ever say something to anyone, I am not going to give you money for transport and this and that.’” She says she hasn’t come across sexual abuse cases of boys, only girls, in over two years of working with OVCs.

In addressing these issues, social workers and guidance counselors have had several suggestions. One social worker (female) believes that caregivers should communicate more with their children about this topic: “Teenagers are too inquisitive, they like experimenting and very often they drink and date, and these are things they find difficult to talk to their caregivers about. So we always encourage them that ‘those people are your caregivers, you live with them and they are like your parents so they should know what happens with you and how you are living and who you really are.’ This is the main area where they have problems, because they can’t talk to their caregivers.” She says that young people are much less comfortable talking to caregivers than to peers or one’s biological parents. Another social worker (male) also believes that OVCs’ risky behaviors are related to a lack of information as well as a desire to rebel, something that could be curbed: “I think maybe the problem comes from a situation where kids are told not to do things, but they are not told why they shouldn’t do them. I think they don’t understand why they shouldn’t do them, and that’s why we have a problem. For someone to change their behavior, they need to know why they should do what they are supposed to do, I think that is where the problem is. We don’t teach them enough, we don’t convince them enough that you shouldn’t do this because of these reasons and that is why we have that problem.” Another social worker (female) recommends that adolescents put school first, and make peer-oriented activities (dating, drugs, drinking) a lower priority: “I tell them not to focus on relationships and make education their first priority. I always advise them to put first things first and if you put first things first it doesn’t bring down the other things, it adds value to those things. If they were to put school first it does not make them a bad wife, husband or business person but rather adds value to what is yet to come. It is a kind of investment.”

Another, larger-scale suggestion by one of the social workers (male) is to form teen centers and places where adolescents can spend time together: “There is nowhere to hang out besides bars. We don’t have places where kids can really hang out except the library but not everybody likes to read; really, they don’t have anywhere to go.” This is how he believes the current situation could be changed: “Maybe if we have youth-friendly places such as youth centers, that could help a lot because I think kids learn best when they are together. Also, the president has introduced a constituency league, a soccer tournament, which has helped a lot because some kids decide to play soccer and spend most of their time playing with others rather than going to bars and all that.”

Caregivers’ views about peer pressure

Caregivers in focus group discussions stated plainly that peer pressure interferes with schoolwork, learning and growth. “Children in general are disturbed by [the effects of] engaging in early relationships, drinking alcohol and abusing drugs. I feel that the government has given children more freedom in terms of children’s rights, and as parents we have difficulty when it comes to disciplining our children.” Thus, the government policies against discipline could potentially lead OVCs (and adolescents in general) to engage in risky behaviors, without negative consequences from the caregivers to discourage them. “Alcohol and drug abuse is a huge issue in the sense that when you abuse them at an early age, chances are that you will have poor concentration in class and in other daily activities.” This was agreed upon by the majority of the group. Another participant said, about the influences of peers, “You will find that in a scenario where five orphans are staying together, they will not think differently from each other. When one does something, all of them will follow. For example, if one starts dating when doing standard 7, all will pass through the same stage and no one will think to change and take a different direction.” The caregivers agreed that if one of them starts dating, they will all date, and that this starts as young as 12 or 13 years old. They don’t approve of this: “Their dating is a problem because it is a sign of disrespect towards the caretaker,” and “It also goes to the schoolwork.”

Advice for OVCs, from OVCs

OVCs had a lot of inspired advice to give to their peers – people about their age or younger. This included:

Stand up for yourself

Don’t give up – “They should not take life for granted, as life is hard.” –male, 13 years old

Study, work hard in school

Don’t steal, drink, or do drugs

Be respectful to your elders

“Do not become victims of peer pressure” –male, 14 years old

In addition, a few said: don’t date or have sex at this age (yet), and go to church

If he could change something about his peers: “Their behavior. They are always complaining when they are told to do things like studying.” –male, 15 years old

“Focus on your school work, and think before you act.” –female, 16 years old

“Tell other people, ‘don’t make fun of me right now, just because I do not have parents.’ You have to be growing and preparing yourself for the world out there because it is not like people are with their parents forever. There is going to come a point when we all have to face the world on our own. You need to be able to stand up on your own.” –male, 14 years old

Go to others for help: “When they are abused I tell them to go to their teachers so that they can seek advice and get more help, so that they do not have stress.” –female, 15 years old. Also, “My teacher always advises me not to give up in life, like for example when you are mad with your parents you should not bottle it up because it might lead to suicide ideation; rather, tell your guidance counselors, who are fully equipped to help students in these situations.” –male, 16 years old

“Stick to your books and when you have a tough time, you shouldn’t give up.” –female, 19 years old

“Having a child at an early age doesn’t mean you cannot change your life, you could still do much, as long as you put more effort into what you do; that’s when you can change your life for the better.” –female, 19 years old

“I will say that challenges are the breakfast of a champion, meaning that every time you will face challenges and by so doing you can overcome those challenges and you will leap back and again is not the end of your life; the single minute that you are taking to leap back contributes a lot to your future.” –male, 19 years old

“I would say to them that they should work very hard because nowadays life is not easy, and they have to abstain from doing things that are not good and also abstain from sex. If they don’t abstain from sex, most of them drop off from school, like being teenage mothers.” –male, 17 years old

Something she’s learned: “I have learned that what I want to be when I grow up I should be, and I should not listen to other people who will discourage me. Some people are jealous.” –female, 14 years old

 “I will tell them that life nowadays life is difficult so education is the key to success.” –male, 15 years old

“I think young people in general need to be taught about the consequences of drug and alcohol abuse, and peer pressure, and to denounce going out to risky places such as liquor bars to avoid indulging in deviant behaviors.” –female, 18 years old

“I will tell them that, in life there are challenges but you can only overcome those challenges through listening to good advice, especially that of your parents. I would encourage them not to give up too easily in life no matter the circumstances.”-female, 18 years old

“Refrain from abusing drugs and alcohol and minimize roaming the streets at night. When young people are roaming the streets at night, there is a possibility that they can engage in bad behaviors in a group and end up in jail.” -male, 16 years old

Advice for OVCs, from Social Workers

Overarching themes:

Life is difficult –education should be a priority: “I emphasize education because it’s the key to success.”

Don’t focus on alcohol/drugs/sex, those can be delayed: “When you are an adolescent, you are moving from one stage to another, you are just in-between, you are starting to develop, and there are those hormones… Apart from drinking and getting involved in risky behaviors you have to be educated, you have to go to school, and you will see those things later, alcohol and sexual activities. Your time will come for those things.”

Don’t blame others (or you may do it forever)

Focus on yourself

Your future is up to you: “No one else is going to determine what kind of a life you are going to have.

Also, address the family unit  “I believe that we need to educate the family. If we could have a well-balanced family structure we wouldn’t have OVCs, because OVCs occur because the family structure has disintegrated. We need to work on family values. We need to work on parenting. That is the whole essence of living, having a family which is at equilibrium.  If we are still not having families, we have men like me who are 30 still running around for the 18-year-olds; we are heading nowhere. We are supposed to be the role models and at a certain age, young men should be preparing to get married. We don’t have role models, the family has disintegrated and we are doing nothing about it. So let’s work on the family: family values, life skills, social skills, parenting, that’s when we can be heading somewhere. Because if we are trying to address the OVC’s, we should leave the symptoms and deal with the cause, and the cause is the family. Let’s make everything fine here and we are not going to have OVC’s.”

Another social worker: The reason why society is not functional is because of the background, the foundation. If a child grows up in an abusive environment, they don’t know the difference; to them it is a way of life. So they grow up, and that’s why you find that in this society there is this thing that orphans and vulnerable children are ‘naughty,’ ‘undisciplined’ and all that. It is because we need to understand where they come from, and we need to intervene now when they are still young so that we can show them that there is better life, there is a different way of living.

It’s so sad, like currently I’m handling this case where an adopted mother is abusing [her] adopted children. So they are vulnerable children and I had to move them to a foster home for short-term foster care, but now because time is lapsing I have to have a plan: where do I take them, do I take them back to the mother who is abusive, do I take them to an institution, you know whatever I do is still going to have effects. If I take them back to the mother, it will be bad because we referred her for counseling, to a psychologist. It is a very difficult decision to make because I’m not sure that she got the help that she needed. I will just be hoping that this time around she won’t abuse them. So those are the kind of cases we have, and especially that in Botswana we don’t have many places of safety, yet we have so many cases of child abuse, most of them are day cares, there is only Childline and SOS and it is very difficult. We also have a problem of… I don’t know if I should call them street children because they don’t live in the streets, they sleep at home but during the day they go to streets, so what can we call them? They are there during the day but in the evenings they go home.

We need to fix things when kids are still young, tell them that ‘you can live differently from what you have experienced as a child.’ It manifests in so many different things, look at the relationships that we have to work with, if it’s not abuse, its something else. If you grow up in an environment where you are not shown love, you cannot know what love is and it is ultimately difficult for you to have adult relationships. It’s difficult for you to have a good marriage because you don’t know what it is to care and love someone, you know. So it is maybe because people take for granted the foundation of child development but it is really the foundation, it has to be good, even if it can’t be perfect.”

Other advice:

“First things first, they need to acknowledge that there was a situation. We now need to come up with an intervention, how I’m going to help myself or my siblings… The first thing that they need to do is to identify the problem, analyze the problem, come up with a solution, and one thing that they should never ever do in life is to blame others. If you start blaming, you will blame forever. The problem is there, but if you blame other people it will not go away. What they are supposed to do now is come up with strategies of removing these obstacles in front of them, and involve other people who can help you. We are always ready to help. If it is bigger than us, we will pull in other stakeholders and at the end of the day we help the person so that that person can help others.”

“Life is very difficult out there, they have to make sure that they become focused on their education, they have to keep themselves from things like alcohol or maybe having partners because these are things which a person can live without, so you can go to school up until the highest level and then you can get married. That’s when you can start most of the things that you have been wishing to do.”

“You have rights, yes, but you also have responsibilities.  You have lost a parent, but it is not the end of the world, so you need to fit in and continue living in a society that you have been raised in.”

“Have role models; aspire to be something in life. For them to do that, they need to stay focused and work hard, they should not think that because it did not work out for their mother or family, maybe she did not make it in school or the family is poor, that they will also be poor forever. It is upon them to change the situation for the better, and they can do it, just as long as they trust themselves. The world would be a better place if they listened to the positive things we tell them and stay away from the negative. Their future is in their hands, if they could just listen. No one said life was easy, it’s full of challenges, challenges you need to overcome to be something, be somebody. It’s just that they are so demoralized, so prone to negative peer pressure, and disruptive competition: they just want to be seen with nice cell phones like their friends from huge families.”

“Education comes first. You just have to be educated first then you can see the other things later. It’s all about education.”

Work hard in school, study when you can: “Take school more seriously because everything in the country is getting tougher and tougher. Use your study period at school to study since it may be the only time you have for studying, because not everybody gets to study when they get home for various reasons. Most of the time when they get home they have to do household chores and afterwards it is already dark, so they should use the study period and utilize the teachers.”

“I think they will succeed when they come to that realization that, ‘I can do anything like any other person who has his or her parents,’ provided caregivers and all stakeholders provide the necessary support these particular children. In that way I don’t think there will be anything that can hinder them to be like any other person – people can come from very poor families but they don’t allow the situation of poverty to prevent them from progressing in life.”

On helping parents of OVCs: “Sometimes when you tell kids something, they do exactly what you are saying. If you say he is naughty, he is going to be naughty because you said so. We are trying to work with the parents so that they can know how to handle them and then try to talk to the kids again so that they know that life is about you as a person choosing your destiny. The parents can say all sorts of things but kids only do what the parents. If we train them or we teach the parents a positive way of talking to children and treating them I think maybe in two years’ time their lives will be different.” She reports that it can be difficult to talk to them because young people often don’t listen, and “To them it seems like we are asking them to do a very difficult thing. But sitting down and talking to them always works magic.”

About mentoring OVCs: “I talk to them about the HIV scourge and they should make sure that they stay away from it. I also talk to them about teenage pregnancy which can affect their school.”

“One thing I want to achieve in these kids is for them to be aware of themselves – who they are and emphasizing that they are special and unique, and making kids love themselves beyond what any other person might love them. By instilling all this in them, they will make the right decisions and they will not easily give in, into anything that comes their way, because they love their bodies and they respect themselves and would not engage in risky behaviors. From my own experience, when you do not have confidence, you can’t even be seen doing anything, you always want to hide and you often make poor decisions.” Also, “Like I said earlier on, I truly believe in loving yourself and being aware of who you are because we grow up in a society where a child is not motivated to become who they want to become or praised for something they did well, but rather criticized for doing something wrong. So one of the things we need to do is praise them for doing the right things and make them aware of the wrong things they do and try to bring them back on track. I tell them that they have a long way to go and they should take their education seriously, and the other things will come later.”

Advice for OVCs, from Caregivers

One of the questions I would ask during the interviews and focus groups was, “What advice would you give to orphans and vulnerable children in Botswana?”

Advice from caregivers was highlighted by the following: work harder in school; be more respectful; have more confidence.

“We advise them to take their studies seriously so that they may have a brighter future tomorrow.” Also, “be respectful to everyone in the general society.” –Female, 41 years old

“I would say to them that leadership should begin within them, and with that s/he could be able to lead her/his family in future.” –Female, 46 years old

“The only [thing] that we ask from them is to put more effort in their studies so that they can fend for themselves in the future.” Also, “I cannot deny the fact that teenagers have notorious tendencies and I encourage them to always use protection in case they get tempted. The other advice that I give them is to keep their bodies and [the places] they stay clean at all times.” –Female, 28 years old

“As parents we try to talk to them and tell them that although their mothers have died it is not the end of life.” –Female, 49 years old

Changes that should be made for OVCs

From a focus group discussion with caregivers in Tlokweng village:

 “Stricter discipline could help.”

“[Caregivers] working hand in hand with the social workers and biological parents.”

“Change the fact that social workers will just come and leave the children here never to check on them again, SOS [Children’s Village] is more of a dumping site.”

From a focus group discussion with caregivers in Mochudi village:

“I think the government helps them at school with the tuition fees, cloths, food etc, but when a child finishes form 5 or fails form 3 the government then abandons the child.”

“After the child fails form 3, the government no longer assists with anything. I think I am not satisfied with the government social workers, like the way they assist the children.” They say this is true with orphans as well as with destitute children.

The Importance of Retreats

A recurring theme in several of my interviews with social workers and guidance counselors was the importance and value of retreats for OVCs, both for educational and psychosocial purposes. Here are some descriptions of retreats and the work that they have done:

“We normally hold workshops for them to teach them that they have rights, yes, but they also have responsibilities.  You have lost a parent, it is not the end of the world; you need to fit in and continue living in a society that you have been raised in.” –Social worker in Tlokweng, female

“From retreat camps they build bonds and relationships and from there they become friends and they are always together. It kind of helps to know that they were at a retreat camp with so and so, and they shared this, and are going through the same thing, so they feel comfortable with each other.” –Social worker in Mochudi, male

“There is a retreat meant for standard seven kids. After their standard seven, we take them for a retreat in natural places because we think that nature is close to healing. They lost their parents when they were young and now they are turning into adolescents, so we prepare them for that stage. They must now be prepared in terms of sexuality, alcohol and other [such] things.” She thinks it really helps: “This year is the third time we are taking these kids; after a year we make an evaluation. We visit their schools and see their behavior: we have found that a kid who has attended a retreat is well-behaved as compared to one who has not, because when [someone] loses a parent sometimes [he or she] becomes very angry and bitter. If we then go through this nature-based therapy we can release all those emotions, you cry out then you feel like a new person, ready to face life fresh. …Basically we are looking at standard seven kids only because we term them as being at a crossroads; they are transitioning from primary school to secondary school, to learn bigger things.” –Social worker in Tlokweng village, female. She reports that they also do grief counseling, and life skills training at the retreat (this is only in the Tlokweng district, and they take 30-40 kids).

“At times during the school vacation the social workers normally take them to different places such as Maun and Ghanzi as well as providing some sort of counseling about life.”  This is seen as helpful. –Guidance counselor in Mochudi, female

Problems for OVCs

Here are some interview responses of OVCs describing challenges in their past or present living situations:

Before coming to SOS Children’s Village: “The environment I was living in was not conducive at all, in most cases I was left with a baby to take care of while the mother disappeared for two weeks or so at a time. During such times I was missing classes, making it difficult to catch up with school work.” –Male, 14 years old

“At home I am not allocated enough time to study. I come late from school after 1700hrs, and sometimes I find the dishes dirty and no one preparing dinner, so it means that before I can do my schoolwork I have to do the dishes, prepare dinner and do other household chores.” –Male, 15 years old

“I wasn’t living well [before]. I was staying with my mother; she drinks alcohol and she would go and spend nights out at the bars. Many times various men would come home at night looking for my mother, and when they didn’t find her they would then abuse me sexually.” –Female, 14 years old

“I remember one time my father sent me out to the shops to buy some items, and it happened that I forgot what I was supposed to buy and bought the wrong items. When I got home my father was angry with me and he told me to pack my bags and leave his house.” He says his father was verbally but not quite physically abusive. –Male, 15  years old

Before SOS, “We were not going to school. There was no one to take care of us. I was always alone; my older siblings were only coming home late at night.” –Male, 15 years old

Two Anecdotes of HIV Infection (beyond their control)

(written on March 12, 2011)

When I was given a tour of the Botswana-Baylor Children’s Clinical Centre of Excellence, I learned that most of the HIV-positive youth in the country acquired HIV through mother-to-child transmission, and a smaller percentage through rape; it was a very small minority of children who contracted HIV through their own chosen behaviors. Yet despite the fact that they had no choice in the matter, they must deal with the consequences. I wanted to share two people’s stories about acquiring their HIV-positive status, the first through mother-to-child transmission and the second through an incident of rape.

I talked to a young man from Mochudi, 17 years old, who told me the following when I asked him about some of the challenges he’d experienced in his life: “When my mother gave birth to me she passed away while I was still young and I don’t even know her face, or my father’s. In 2006 I got a disease and while I tested at the hospital they told me that I was positive for HIV, but because I was still young I didn’t know anything. While I was growing, I realized how I could maintain my health despite the fact that I had HIV, but the thing is I have to take the treatment everyday as the doctor recommended… Now, I am doing so. It took me time, but I have accepted the situation.” He believes he became HIV positive from his mother and also indirectly from his grandmother, who were both HIV positive. When he found out about his positive status he said, “I was ashamed,” but “because there are teen clubs I became involved and it helped me to be open to myself and know that it is not me alone who is suffering from HIV and it is not my fault. Nowadays I am also confident because of Stepping Stones.” Teen club is a support group run by Baylor specifically for HIV-positive youth in Botswana, and Stepping Stones International is an after-school program for OVCs in Mochudi.

Another person from Mochudi, an 18-year-old female, informed me that she was HIV positive as the result of a rape. Expanding upon the story, she told me the following: “I remember clearly that it was around examination time, and on one Sunday I went out with my friends to a liquor bar. At around midnight I sneaked out of the bar with the intention of dodging my friends so that I could go back home because I was supposed to go to school on Monday. I went through a passage and I saw a person following and calling me by my name. I hurried through the passage but he suddenly grabbed me and took a knife out of his pocket. He dragged me and pressed me against a nearby rock and commanded me not to make any noise or else he would kill me. He ripped off my clothes and raped me. I was bleeding all over the body. As if that was not enough, he dragged me and laid me beside the tarred road and left me lying there unconscious… only to find myself in the hospital after regaining consciousness. I was told that I was found by the police on patrol and they brought me to the hospital.” The man was arrested.

This is her description of the aftermath: “[Now] I feel that everything is okay, especially that my mother is treating me well; from the time I was admitted to the hospital my family gave me a lot of support throughout the whole process.

Immediately after the HIV diagnosis I underwent extensive psychosocial counseling at an organization called ‘Bakgatla bolokang matshelo.’ I was told to accept my status and I eventually joined teen club… As a member of teen club, I began to accept my HIV status because I realized that I was not alone and there are other young people my age who have the same problem as mine. My family accepted me and gave me some love.”

These testimonies certainly also speak to the value of support programs for vulnerable youth – despite their very trying circumstances, such programs can make a tremendous difference.

Where are these people now? The first person mentioned above wants to be a policeman “to help society to control crime and also advise my age mates.” He “takes other kids for counseling, and advises them to take the treatment and protect themselves and not mix treatment with alcohol,” and says he doesn’t want his peers or his future children “to suffer like I did.” As for the second, she enthusiastically intends to be a doctor (a general practitioner) working in Botswana and also says, “I personally think I can help change the mindset of young people towards HIV/AIDS through sharing my story and experience. I will also teach them about HIV prevention measures and not forgetting to encourage them to never give up too easily in life no matter the circumstances.” By channeling their hardship in a way that allows them to ameliorate the lives of others as well as provide experience for a more successful future, these young people are extraordinary examples for other youth who are also undergoing substantial adversity.