The Role of Teachers and Caregivers in Adolescent Girls with Disabilities’ Sex Education in the Lakes Region of Kenya

Abstract

Although sexual and reproductive health, encompassing good quality sexual education, is a human right possessed by all persons, people with disabilities rarely experience equitable access to sexual education. Moreover, despite an emerging literature, little is still known about the experience of sexual education for people with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries or the perspectives of caregivers that provide it. This includes adolescent girls with disabilities specifically, whose exploration of sexuality intersects with cultural conceptions of gender roles as well as unique sexual education needs (e.g. about menstruation and reproductive healthcare). This chapter presents findings from secondary data analysis ofqualitative focus group data with adolescent girls with disabilities and caregivers within the Lakes Region of Kenya as part of the DFID-funded Girls Education Challenge Transition (GEC-T) project. The findings highlight perceived openness and approachability as important to adolescents when selecting a source of information about sexual issues. They also suggest that while sexual education in formal schooling provided a good base knowledge to adolescents, caregivers felt that they had to supplement teaching with additional examples taken from their life histories and the wider community. Overall, the findings highlight the central role that both teachers and parents/caregivers, as well as others such as close family members, play in the provision of sex education to adolescents with disabilities.