Speaker 1: When Ka Kenya and Taia was growing up in a
Speaker 1: Massai community in rural Kenya, it was rare for girls
Speaker 1: like her to go to school beyond seventh grade. So
Speaker 1: much has changed now. Growing up there was like like
Speaker 1: it wasn't girls would go to school beyond primary school.
Speaker 1: That was like, I'm pad of my best friend got
Speaker 1: married when went sixth grade. A lot of my other
Speaker 1: friends got to Maryland. They were in seventh grade and
Speaker 1: by the time were in eighth grade, there was only
Speaker 1: two girls. The boys used to tell us, what are
Speaker 1: you still doing in this class? Ka Kenya stayed in
Speaker 1: school because her mother pushed her too, and she eventually
Speaker 1: got a scholarship to study at a university in the US.
Speaker 1: She now runs her own ngeo Ka Kenya's Dream that
Speaker 1: helps girls in her community stay in school and delay
Speaker 1: marriage into adulthood. Because of organizations like hers and a
Speaker 1: push from advocacy groups and the Kenyan government, girls enrollment
Speaker 1: in secondary school has shut up. In the last years.
Speaker 1: The rates of girls completing secondary school there have doubled,
Speaker 1: according to data from the World Bank. That increases their
Speaker 1: earning potential and the quality of their lives and their
Speaker 1: children's lives. The country is well off when the women
Speaker 1: are taken care of, and that woman starts from that
Speaker 1: little girl, who you need to support, who you need
Speaker 1: to protect, who we need to God. Then the pandemic hit,
Speaker 1: shutting down schools and programs like Kenya's Dream. Kenya feared
Speaker 1: that the lockdowns would threaten all that progress. For the
Speaker 1: first time, the guests were sent home and to stay
Speaker 1: for a very long time without event knowing when they
Speaker 1: will come back. There was good reason to worry eight
Speaker 1: years ago when schools closed for months at a time
Speaker 1: during the Ebola crisis in West Africa. Girls there got
Speaker 1: off track, and one of the main culprits was a
Speaker 1: spike in teen pregnancy rates, which made it hard for
Speaker 1: many of them to finish school. When young girls have kids,
Speaker 1: that has all sorts of knock on effects. They're less
Speaker 1: likely to find financial stability, and their children are less
Speaker 1: likely to complete their schooling too. In March, it looked
Speaker 1: like Kenya was headed down that path. They went back
Speaker 1: to the homes that were not prepared to have goals.
Speaker 1: Especially for us, we had gay in high school or
Speaker 1: poy in college. Yet there was one small but crucial
Speaker 1: thing that could potentially give someone like Ka Kenya some
Speaker 1: hope during the Ebola crisis. Researchers found that those who
Speaker 1: had participated in community based programs like Ka Kenya's Dream
Speaker 1: that were focused on empowerment and sexual health before things
Speaker 1: shut down, they were less likely to get pregnant during
Speaker 1: lockdown and more likely to return to school when restrictions
Speaker 1: were lifted. The pandemic would almost certainly set girls and
Speaker 1: Kenya back. But is it possible because of people like
Speaker 1: Kenya that they can recover just as quickly? Dobless claims
Speaker 1: coming in, I mean really jumping from the week before,
Speaker 1: pretty brutal. Three point to million records. Six point six
Speaker 1: million Americans filed for unemployment last week and didn't working
Speaker 1: women were the worst infected by the pandemic. We believe
Speaker 1: that we are in facting one girl, one family, one village,
Speaker 1: one country at the time. Well, now to the billionaire boom.
Speaker 1: According to Bloombird, super yacht charters are up over three
Speaker 1: d and a billionaire was created every twenty six I
Speaker 1: was during this pandemic. No, I'm not waiting in line
Speaker 1: for a COVID test with the public gross. It is
Speaker 1: time for a wealth tax in America. We'll come back
Speaker 1: to the paycheck. I'm Rebecca Greenfield. One of the good
Speaker 1: news stories in the recent history of wealth inequality is
Speaker 1: that globally, the gap between the richest and the poorest
Speaker 1: has been closing. There are a few reasons for that,
Speaker 1: but a big one that has pulled millions out of
Speaker 1: poverty has been the push in developing nations to educate
Speaker 1: young girls. Only half of the world's girls were enrolled
Speaker 1: in school, but within two decades that proportion has risen
Speaker 1: to two thirds. In many countries, the education gap between
Speaker 1: girls and boys has closed entirely. The benefits have been many.
Speaker 1: A girl born today will live on average, eight years
Speaker 1: longer than one born years ago. Women with a secondary
Speaker 1: education are more likely to delay marriage and plan their family,
Speaker 1: and less likely to be stuck in an abusive relationship
Speaker 1: and poverty. The pandemic on four sinately has been a
Speaker 1: setback reaching gender parity. Acquainting the World Economic Forum has
Speaker 1: been set back by a generation. They said would take
Speaker 1: about hundred years before the pandemic to reach under parity.
Speaker 1: Now it's a generation on from that's about hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty five years. That's Namil Ahmed a strategist at Oxfam International,
Speaker 1: global poverty nonprofit. While we've seen women in many countries
Speaker 1: face also this second pandemic of increased gender based violence,
Speaker 1: of this mountain of care work, as ever that the
Speaker 1: shock absorbers really of crisis. One place that has been
Speaker 1: hit particularly hard is Kenya because of its high poverty
Speaker 1: rate and fragile healthcare system. The country had one of
Speaker 1: the harshest responses to the virus. Schools were closed through January.
Speaker 1: There were curfews, travel bands, and area specific lockdowns that
Speaker 1: helped keep infection rates low, but it resulted in greater
Speaker 1: food and security, more domestic violence, and high unemployment. In
Speaker 1: some ways, girls have felt it the hardest. Earlier this year,
Speaker 1: journalist Jill Filipovic published a troubling story in Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week magazine. She profiled girls who had big dreams, but
Speaker 1: they were struggling with new realities filled with more violence, hunger, poverty,
Speaker 1: and sometimes new babies of their own to care for.
Speaker 1: But the stories of their lives didn't end there. With
Speaker 1: COVID restrictions lifting and the global economy inching its way
Speaker 1: to recovery, we asked her to return to Kenya's capital
Speaker 1: Nairobi to see how some of those girls were faring.
Speaker 1: Now here she is with the story. Meet Esther, an
Speaker 1: eighteen year old girl living in Nairobi. She had dreams
Speaker 1: of becoming a newscaster, and before the pandemic she was
Speaker 1: on track. She was in Form one, the equivalent of
Speaker 1: ninth grade, and if she graduated in three years as planned,
Speaker 1: she would have been the first girl in her family
Speaker 1: to finish secondary school. We've changed Esther's name here to
Speaker 1: protect her privacy. I want to become one delay Victoria Ubady,
Speaker 1: like so many ancles like I feel so good when
Speaker 1: they're just presenting, especially when they're talking English, like I
Speaker 1: admire that. Like I want to make someone that can
Speaker 1: give other people inspiration, tell them that I was like
Speaker 1: this and they have walked through this darkest time, heaviest time,
Speaker 1: and still today and strong and I'm able to love. Then,
Speaker 1: the COVID lockdowns in March left Esther stuck at home
Speaker 1: and out of school in a small, crowded house in
Speaker 1: what can be a tough neighborhood. Estra's mother had never
Speaker 1: been particularly stable, but the pandemic pushed her stress levels
Speaker 1: to new highs, and she began badly abusing her daughter.
Speaker 1: It wasn't so good for me and my mom at home.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we didn't understand each other. We had quarrels over
Speaker 1: small things. My mom chegged me away. She would send
Speaker 1: me away off like great out of myself. So it
Speaker 1: was like I was trying to look for safety players
Speaker 1: we can be. Esther's mom eventually kicked her out of
Speaker 1: the house. At night, Esther would sleep in a nearby forest,
Speaker 1: armed up with her boyfriend. By the time Esther realized
Speaker 1: she was pregnant, she was several months along. Her boyfriend
Speaker 1: was unsupportive, denying the baby was his. He left Esther
Speaker 1: alone to carry and raise their child, who she gave
Speaker 1: birth to in November. I'm just tired. Every will just
Speaker 1: go on crying, crying, crying, like I don't have anything
Speaker 1: to do with my life. I just want to die.
Speaker 1: Esther is far from an outlier. The u n f
Speaker 1: p A, the United Nations Family Planning Arm, found that
Speaker 1: a lack of access to contraceptives in low and middle
Speaker 1: income countries during the pandemic resulted in one point for
Speaker 1: a million unintended pregnancies. Well, pregnancies were already high among
Speaker 1: girls and Kenya even before the pandemic. They shot up
Speaker 1: for girls who were in second dairy school when COVID hit.
Speaker 1: Compared to girls who sat for their final exams in nineteen,
Speaker 1: those who were supposed to complete their schooling in were
Speaker 1: twice as likely to become pregnant and three times as
Speaker 1: likely to drop out of school entirely. But Esther also
Speaker 1: had a stroke of luck. She lives in Cabara, a
Speaker 1: large and vibrant low income neighborhood in Nairobi, and down
Speaker 1: the road from her house is Project Alimu. Project Alimu
Speaker 1: is a well regarded ballet school. It's cracked concrete walls
Speaker 1: are painted in bright colors and hold up an uneven
Speaker 1: tin roof. Inside, it's a festival of noise. The music
Speaker 1: shifts from classical to afrobeats. Kids shriek and cackle, girls
Speaker 1: flounced around, and the leggings and two twos. Esther isn't
Speaker 1: a dancer, but at Project a Limu she found a
Speaker 1: little help from Michael Michael Maya, I'm the founder of
Speaker 1: Project to Lima, which is an after school program based
Speaker 1: here in Cabra. So my main work is I teach dance,
Speaker 1: but also I do a lot of mentorship and the
Speaker 1: psyco social support to lots and lots of children in Cubra.
Speaker 1: Michael plays a big role in his Caberra community project.
Speaker 1: A Limu trains dozens of dancers and here students have
Speaker 1: a safe space away from the stressors at home. When
Speaker 1: they come to project. To Limu, they can get something
Speaker 1: to eat, girls can find sanitary pads, and children who
Speaker 1: come here have the chance to play, to be kids
Speaker 1: and to hear that they're important. During the early days
Speaker 1: of the pandemic, project a Limu had to shut down.
Speaker 1: It's funding also dried up as donors redirected their money
Speaker 1: to COVID relief. With COVID, it was so big because
Speaker 1: the problem was the schools had all shut down, and
Speaker 1: a lot of support that all these girls get comes
Speaker 1: from their schooling and a lot of per education, a
Speaker 1: lot of psycho social support, a lot of food for instance,
Speaker 1: and then also just a place that they would just
Speaker 1: be girls. In Kenya, schools are were most low income
Speaker 1: kids get their most consistent meal of the day. Most
Speaker 1: households like internet access, making online learning close to impossible,
Speaker 1: and when schools closed, kids were thrust into difficult living
Speaker 1: situations with parents who are out of work and highly stressed.
Speaker 1: You know, when there's less money in a household, and
Speaker 1: houses saw it growing up in my own family. When
Speaker 1: there's less money and there's high demand of food, there's stress.
Speaker 1: And when there is stress, it leads to violence because
Speaker 1: we don't have other ways of handling our stress if
Speaker 1: it's not violence, And so there was a lot of
Speaker 1: domestic violence cases. There was also a lot of sexual
Speaker 1: abuse and young girls. Many teenage girls like Esther found attention, food,
Speaker 1: and financial support from adult man, but a few of
Speaker 1: them had learned much about sexual health and pregnancy prevention,
Speaker 1: not to mention sexual consent, and many of these relationships
Speaker 1: were fundamentally imbalanced between adolescent girls who needed basics like
Speaker 1: sanitary pads, a few dollars for food and shelter, and
Speaker 1: adult men who could make sex the price tag. So
Speaker 1: when the girls grew they never got that parent to
Speaker 1: support from their parents because their parents were also young
Speaker 1: adults at that time when they were born, so they
Speaker 1: never got enough time to learn about for instances, sexual
Speaker 1: education to get to understand how to keep themselves safe.
Speaker 1: So you would find girls who are tricked into having
Speaker 1: boyfriends at a very alle age, because then the boyfriends
Speaker 1: would provide in majority of them. They see their moms
Speaker 1: also stuck into relationships that are very toxic. So some
Speaker 1: of the girls got pregnant unluckily, but we were able
Speaker 1: to find a way in supporting the astro Found Refuge
Speaker 1: and project a lever. Mike supported me from the time
Speaker 1: when I was five months pregnant. He told me, it
Speaker 1: is not the end. You have big rocks, you have
Speaker 1: big mountains, and you're a human being. People do make mistake,
Speaker 1: but it is the same time you have understand yourself
Speaker 1: and you want to be given another chance to go
Speaker 1: back to school. And you're not afraid because I'm here
Speaker 1: to mentor you. I'm here to tell you need to
Speaker 1: study when you don't have to be the same that
Speaker 1: you are. You don't need to be cheated by boys again.
Speaker 1: You need to understand no matter how hard the situation is,
Speaker 1: you need to focus. You don't need to fight people
Speaker 1: to make them understand you. Yes, I don't need to
Speaker 1: fight with my mom to understand me because it is
Speaker 1: my mistake and I need to correct my mistake by myself.
Speaker 1: No one should judge me by my mistake. Because they
Speaker 1: don't know my goodness. Like Michael, Florence mcgeary works with
Speaker 1: adolescence in an informal Nairobi settlement. Along with some friends,
Speaker 1: she founded the organization l E S, Lead, Educate and Succeed,
Speaker 1: which provides local adolescent girls with information about sexual health,
Speaker 1: pushes them to assert themselves and encourages them to dream
Speaker 1: big for their futures. Since Corona had to strike like
Speaker 1: the whole country, not only in Kenya, we saw that
Speaker 1: it's nice to have a discussion with the young people
Speaker 1: because those high rate of pregnancy in Kenya, because of
Speaker 1: the idleness of the young people. I sat in on
Speaker 1: a session Florence and her fellow educators held with some
Speaker 1: two dozen girls about sexual health. Florence says parents are
Speaker 1: grateful for her classes because kids are are always comfortable
Speaker 1: talking to them about sex and parents aren't always comfortable
Speaker 1: talking to their kids about sex either. They're not going
Speaker 1: to school and all the people that are taking advantage
Speaker 1: of them of their naivety, and then it was there
Speaker 1: was cassity of food, the parents were not working, so
Speaker 1: it was like kind of kills, but it's quiet kills. Now.
Speaker 1: Schools and community programs are open again, but many adults
Speaker 1: don't have their jobs back or badly in debt, which
Speaker 1: means they can't afford to pay the school fees that
Speaker 1: are a fixture in many African countries, and we're a
Speaker 1: barrier to education even before the pandemic. There's so many
Speaker 1: family school not of food. And the good thing is
Speaker 1: that the government was like, no, you need to open
Speaker 1: up the school for every kid to come. That was
Speaker 1: the case for Evelyn, who I met last year and
Speaker 1: then caught up with again on my recent trip to Kenya.
Speaker 1: Evelyn lost her job in March and still hasn't returned
Speaker 1: to a formal workplace, although she does small jobs around
Speaker 1: her neighborhood to make ends meet. When COVID hit shutdowns
Speaker 1: closed school for her two kids, ten year old Blessing
Speaker 1: and six year old Miguel, Evelyn did her best to
Speaker 1: teach them at home, going over the alphabet with Miguel
Speaker 1: and quizzing Blessing on her English. When schools finally reopened
Speaker 1: in January one, though Evelyn still wasn't back to work
Speaker 1: and didn't have the money to pay for her kids
Speaker 1: to re enroll. She takes home roughly nine d Kenyan
Speaker 1: shillings a week, which amounts to less than eight U
Speaker 1: S dollars, not enough to cover school fees. It hurt,
Speaker 1: but since I didn't have that cash to take them
Speaker 1: back to school. Luckily, the schools let her kids come back.
Speaker 1: Even though Evelyn was still in arrears. Back in school,
Speaker 1: Blessing is excelling. She had the highest marks in her
Speaker 1: class this term. Evelyn, who dropped out of high school
Speaker 1: after getting pregnant, wants her daughter to go farther than
Speaker 1: she did. Maybe, Evelyn says, Blessing will be a doctor someday.
Speaker 1: You know, for me, I didn't reach that level. I
Speaker 1: gave birth when I was informed too. So for my
Speaker 1: kids I want them to to go higher than me
Speaker 1: so that they can have a better future. For Blessing,
Speaker 1: she's a great girl, so I can't afford to miss
Speaker 1: with her life. And for girls who end up pregnant,
Speaker 1: school fees aren't the only hurdle. Even though Kenyan law
Speaker 1: entitles teenage mothers to an education, there's still a tremendous
Speaker 1: stigma attached to youth pregnancy. A girl's parents may decide
Speaker 1: not to pay for her schooling. She may not have
Speaker 1: anyone to watch her child while she learns, and even
Speaker 1: if she overcomes those challenges and gets into a classroom,
Speaker 1: she may face bullying by her peers and even her teachers.
Speaker 1: Some schools who are not fully embracing gods who have
Speaker 1: given birth, there's a lot of stigma when you go
Speaker 1: back to school as a young mother. They always talk
Speaker 1: of people who just went out to have sex and
Speaker 1: came back with babies. Instead of designing the school to
Speaker 1: be a safe space for these girls, it became a
Speaker 1: place that they did not feel comfortable. The result is
Speaker 1: that girls who enter into motherhood early are subject to
Speaker 1: the whims of the adults around them and are often
Speaker 1: only able to complete their schooling if they're very lucky
Speaker 1: and if they have someone with a little power advocating
Speaker 1: for them. It gets so hard for them, so they
Speaker 1: weren't out sometimes, but we try to encourage them as
Speaker 1: much as we can to have them just back in school.
Speaker 1: We decided to redesign our approach whereby if you were
Speaker 1: unlucky and you got pregnant, we still embrace you as
Speaker 1: one of us, and we were able to find help
Speaker 1: for them. We find a way of getting proper medical
Speaker 1: support and then also using the network within our parents,
Speaker 1: because we have parents who how do you call them?
Speaker 1: Community health volunteers and they're very good with pre natural
Speaker 1: care and after you've given bath, they will help you.
Speaker 1: After being out for a year, Esther is finally back
Speaker 1: in school and helping to graduate. After that, she says
Speaker 1: she wants to start her own business so she can
Speaker 1: provide for herself and her son. For me, I see lights,
Speaker 1: I see like I'm going to that moon that I wanted.
Speaker 1: But now I feel so good because I have Mike
Speaker 1: support and he told me to go back to school.
Speaker 1: I feel so proud because it is like I'm making
Speaker 1: a step, like I want to become that person that
Speaker 1: I wanted to become in life. Make this said, know
Speaker 1: that I don't need to prove them wrong. I need
Speaker 1: to prove myself from that no matter what they did
Speaker 1: to me, still able to raise my son on my
Speaker 1: own and do a better job that can make my
Speaker 1: family get out of this this place because it's not
Speaker 1: a good list for all of us. This is a
Speaker 1: crucial moment, not just for women and girls, but for
Speaker 1: the well being of entire nations. National economies will grow
Speaker 1: or shrink depending on women's ability to get an education,
Speaker 1: work and plan their families. Next week on the Paycheck,
Speaker 1: we had to a part of the world that's on
Speaker 1: uptick and marriage during the pandemic. But it wasn't all
Speaker 1: joyful celebrations, girls objective. Many of the girls that didn't
Speaker 1: want it to get married. But when we try to
Speaker 1: stop even the community people, they said, by you, people
Speaker 1: are dropping, let it happen. Thanks for listening to The Paycheck.
Speaker 1: If you like our show, please head on over to
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts to rate,
Speaker 1: review and subscribe. This episode was hosted by Me Rebecca
Speaker 1: Greenfield and reported by a Jail Filipovic. It was edited
Speaker 1: by Danielle Balbi with help from Francesca Levi, Janet Paskin
Speaker 1: Rocksheeta Saluja and Me. We also had editing help from
Speaker 1: Shelley Banjo, Kristin v. Brown, Gilda to Carly, Nicole Flato,
Speaker 1: Elissa McDonald, and Kai Schultz. This episode was produced by
Speaker 1: Gilda to Carly and sound engineered by Matt him. Our
Speaker 1: original music is by Leo Sidron. Special thanks to Magnus Hendrickson,
Speaker 1: Margaret Sutherland, Stacy Wong, and Aisha Diallo. Francesca Levi is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's head of podcasts. See you next week.