First child? : no! : a late born : a study about the social agendas concerning the lives of young adult female PCC members and the process of invisibilization as response to their premarital pregnancy

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“First child? No! A late born”

A study about the social agendas concerning the lives of

young adult female PCC members and the process of

invisibilization as response to their premarital pregnancy

Annabel de Groot University of Amsterdam 10120149 Medical Anthropology and Sociology annabel.degroot@student.uva.nl Graduate School of Social Science Master Thesis Supervisor: Rijk van Dijk July 2014 Second reader: Kristine Krause

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Summary

In 2012 Ghana recorded 750.000 pregnant teenage girls. It has been discussed in the media as a major problem to the society. Speculations are made about the causes, and possible solutions are offered. But very little is known about the experiences of these young women. In an society where more than seventy percent affiliates the Christian faith and one third of those attend Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches, churches especially PCCs have high influence on the moral and social conventions of society. With such a huge amount of teenage pregnancies and a lot of PCC members, I assume there must be unmarried pregnant PCC members. PCCs consider pregnancy before marriage a sin – as wrong in the eyes of God – and therefore believe this behavior needs to be corrected. Being a member of PCCs and being pregnant before marriage therefore seems like a contradiction. That doesn’t mean, it has not occurred. This study is about the experience of these unmarried young adult pregnant members of PCCs. With this study I aim to understand the position of these young adult unmarried mothers. This study describes how pregnancy is being perceived by young adult women, their peers, families and PCCs in Kumasi, and how these views relate to moral and social conventions concerning age and gender in these contexts. This thesis describes the social agendas of these groups of authority and explains how invisibilization is practiced as a response to their members early pregnancy.

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Special thanks to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Rijk van Dijk, who supported me and guided me throughout the research process. He continued to encourage and motivated me to use my brains till an extend I never considered to be possible. It might be cliché, but I am convinced I couldn’t have had a better supervisor and I

am very grateful he was willing to take that role upon him despite his busy schedule. Thanks also to my ‘surrogate’ supervisor in the field, Dr. Jonathan Mensah Dapaah. He volunteered to encourage me doing fieldwork about this sensitive subject, and helped me to decide the fundamental steps I had to take in order for this research to succeed. I am very grateful for his support and it was a pleasure talking with him. Furthermore, I would like to thank all the research participants: the mothers, the youth, the doctors, the students, the traders, the artists, the pastors, and the church members. They have been generously kind to me and made this fieldwork to

be an unforgettable experience to me. I would also like to thank three pastors: pastor George, pastor Stephen pastor Matthew. Thanks to pastor George who brought me into contact with pastor Stephen in Kumasi. Pastor Stephen introduced me to his church, helped me find some of the respondents and allowed me to ‘borrow’ his junior pastor Matthew. This young and kind pastor was key to this research. Without him, I wouldn’t have met most of the respondents. He entertained me with his interesting and sometimes silly remarks. I will never forget

the walks with Matthew and Isaac, and the good but sometimes exhausting talks we’ve had on the way back to the guesthouse. Last but not least, I thank God for His guidance and strength and for all the wonderful people

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Introduction

Last year, 2013 Ghanaian media reported the shocking number of 750.000 teenage girls who were recorded pregnant in the previous year 2012 (AllAfrica.com 2013, Ayibani 2013, BusinessGhana 2013, DailyGraphic 2013, GhanaHealthNest.com 2013, GNA 2013, ModernGhana.com 2013). Though the country is often seen as a model for political and economic reform (UNDP 2014), the country struggles to find a solution to the growing number of early pregnancies. Many Ghanaians consider it a serious problem to society. Doctors, midwives, nurses, teachers, social workers, pastors and ministers express their concern in the media about the youth’s growing appetite for premarital sex, and speak out their worries concerning the health risks and social consequences of early pregnancy (AllAfrica.com 2013, AllGhanaNews.com 2014, Ayibani 2013, VibeGhana.com 2013a VibeGhana.com 2013b). People try to figure out why an increasing number of young women get pregnant these days. Some link it to the “nude and pornographic elements” in local and foreign movies broadcast on Ghana’s TV channels (AllGhanaNews.com 2014). Others blame it to broken homes (VibeGhana.com 2013b, GNA 2013), poverty (Schandorf 2014, SpyGhana.com 2014a), peer pressure (GNA 2013, VibeGhana.com 2013a and 2013b), lack of sexual education (Ayibani 2013, AllAfrica.com 2013, SpyGhana.com 2014b), and a few draw attention to “bad young teachers” who – so they expect – slept with the girls (SpyGhana.com 2014a).

Years before this rise of teenage pregnancies occurred, another phenomenon happened. The Pentecostal and Charismatic churches (PCCs) widely spread all over the African continent, and on a “more massive scale” in Ghana and Nigeria (Meyer 2004: 453). More than seventy percent of the Ghanaian population affiliates with the Christian faith (CIA 2010, GSS 2014: 63). Among those Christians the most attended are the Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches. Almost thirty percent of Ghana’s Christians are members of PCCs (CIA 2010, GSS 2014: 84). These extrovert churches are known for their strict doctrine on morality. Their ideological messages are centered around the topics of success, prosperity, the power of the Holy Spirit, deliverance from evil powers and breaking from the past (Meyer 2004: 448, 453; Sackey 2001: 42-43, and Van Dijk 2004: 442). In addition, these churches emphasize a particular sexual morality. In a society where many people attend these churches and at the same time such a high number of teenage girls become pregnant each year, we can safely assume there must be pregnant adolescent within the PCCs.

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6 This study is about the experience of unmarried young adult pregnant members of PCCs. PCCs consider pregnancy before marriage a sin – as wrong in the eyes of God – and therefore believe this behavior needs to be corrected. Being a member of PCC and being pregnant before marriage therefore seems like a contradiction. That doesn’t mean, it has not occurred. With this study I aim to understand the position of these young adult unmarried mothers. As they disobeyed their church rules, could it be that they fulfilled the expectation of another group they associate themselves with? Peer pressure is an often mentioned cause for teenage pregnancy. It is likely that peers have a great influence on the lives of young adult women. Peer pressure might have contributed to the early pregnancies. Other causes of teenage pregnancy like broken homes and lack of sexual education, point at the influence of parents and families who – according to pastors, health professionals and multiple media sources – may have failed to raise their daughters well. Lack of financial means also contribute, as it often leads young girls to engage in transactional sex whereby people have sex in return for money or material goods.

The church, peers and the family seem to play a significant role in the lives of young adult ladies. But what do these three groups of authority expect from their young adult girl-members? And what are their responses and possible solutions to an early pregnancy? The aim of this thesis is to shed some light on these questions.

Research questions

The central question of this research is:

How is pregnancy before marriage being perceived by young adult women, their peers, families and Pentecostal and Charismatic churches in Kumasi, and how do these views relate to moral and social conventions concerning age, gender and sexuality in these contexts?

These moral and social conventions that different groups in society may emphasize concerning the ‘proper’ life-course of a person in terms of his or her age and gender, can be called a social agenda. Therefore the sub-questions will deal with highlight different aspects of these conventions as a social agenda.

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7 The subquestions I aim to answer are:

- To what extent are moral and social conventions concerning age and gender part of a

social agenda for the young women their peers concerning sexuality, relationships, education and giving birth?

social agenda for the young women their PCCs concerning sexuality, relationships, education and giving birth?

social agenda for the young women their families concerning sexuality, relationships, education and giving birth?

- Is a premarital pregnancy interfering any of these social agendas and when it does,

how?

- What is the response of these groups of authority when one of their members becomes

pregnant before marriage, and what are explanations of this response?

Setting the scene and a sensitive ethnography

This research was conducted in Kumasi, Ashanti Ghana the second largest city of the country residing more than two million people. Dozens of PCCs are located at the city’s suburbs, but I chose to work in and via one relatively small Charismatic church located at a center area of Kumasi. On the invitations of respondents did I visit other PCCs staged at different areas of the city.

The original idea was to interact with unmarried (recently) pregnant young adult PCC members. But whilst in the field I hardly found any in these circles. These girls didn’t show up in these church communities and nobody seemed to know one of them, though everybody knew there were many. In order to make sure I would not come back from the field empty handed I had to change my approach. In the first church I attended in search for respondents, a lady came to me after the service telling me she had ‘experience’ and was willing to talk. This was the thirty-five year old Belinda who became pregnant when she was only sixteen years old. Together with a junior pastor, who later became my translator and research assistant, I went to her house for the interview. It was interesting to listen to her story told from a retrospective point of view. After Belinda, the junior pastor (and others) introduced more women with ‘experience’ who were willing to talk about their lives with me. This seemed to

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8 work, hence I decided to change my approach into a retrospective one. This retrospective approach worked better than expected. It made me understand more about the influence of a premarital pregnancy on the life course of these young women, as I heard how their early pregnancies disturbed the future plans they themselves and others made for them. Their stories explained why many unmarried pregnant young adults were not visible in PCCs today. Analyzing the past experiences of these women furthermore helped me understand why there seemed to be a need to invisibilize the issue. The women looked back at their lives from before, during and after their pregnancy and thereby provided me of a wide range of experiences and circumstances in which invisibilizing practices took place. Especially in the context of PCCs, pastors seemed interested upholding their church reputation by silencing the existence of pregnant young adults.

Structure of the thesis

In the next chapter on methodology this process will be described along with other challenges and solutions concerning the conduct of the fieldwork. This is followed by a theoretical framework of the existing literature on the subject, explaining the phenomenon ‘navigating youth’ and introducing the concepts of life course and invisibilization. The next three chapters will describe the empirical data. The first will describe the general context in which young adults grow up, and discusses the known statistics about young adult women in (urban) Ghana. The second empirical chapter will give an inside into the social agendas that peers, families and PCCs seem to emphasize and discusses how these three agendas contradict and at other times strengthen each other. The third empirical chapter describes the process or system of invisibilization on the sexual behavior of young adult women as occurs in all three groups of authority. I end this thesis with a conclusion which will contain new questions that may lead to further research.

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Methodology

During a fieldwork period of ten weeks in the months February till May 2014 I worked in Kumasi, Ghana to conduct ethnographic research. Characteristic of ethnographic research is the qualitative methodology through which one is able to find, describe, analyze and understand an emic perspective of participants behaviors and cultural meanings. Through participation in the lives of the respondents, trust is more likely build up which often permits the researcher to talk about sensitive topics. I used the qualitative techniques of participant observation, (semi-structured) interviews, focus group discussions, notes, informal talks and media analyses, to collect data and generate a deeper understanding of the sensitive topic. In this chapter I will describe the made choices concerning the ways in which I collected the data. First of all I will describe the field location and the process through which I met the research participants. Next, I will explain why I chose to use the before mentioned methods, and introduce the research participants, in particular the key informants. Followed by the ethical considerations and challenges. Further there will be an introduction to my research assistant and translator. Finally, I will describe the limitations of this study.

The field location

Fieldwork was conducted in Kumasi, the second largest city of Ghana. I considered the chance of finding young pregnant PCC members more likely in this megacity that inhabits more than two million people (GSS 2012b: 8) and is a home to many different PCC branches (GPCC). There was one Charismatic church community through which I collected most of the data. I was introduced to this church through a Ghanaian friend’s pastor who used to preach in the head quarter of this church formation in Accra. The headquarter is huge. Thousands of people attend this church found by its famous pastor-bishop. The branch I joined in the central suburb of Kumasi, is significantly smaller. Around eighty to hundred members gather there every Sunday to worship and praise the Lord. The church has three pastors: two junior pastors called Benjamin and Paul and one senior pastor, pastor Mark. It was mostly through these pastors that I got into contact with my informants. Pastor Mark introduced me to his church and allowed me to talk to the church members. I participated in Sunday services, Monday evening youth meetings, Wednesday evening bible studies, and occasionally attended the Tuesday evening women’s fellowship and Friday evening prayer force. During the days I often visited the church premises to meet the pastors and their friends. Regularly, people – both women and men – came to the church premises for a talk with one of the pastors. Being

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10 there gave me the opportunity to get to know many of these members within the limited ten weeks of fieldwork.

Participant observation

In Kumasi I spent my time joining church (youth) members and pastors in their daily routine as much as they allowed me. The method of participant observation in which “a researcher takes part in the daily activities, rituals, interactions, and events of a group of people as one of the means of learning the explicit and tacit aspects of their life routine and their culture” (DeWalt & DeWalt 2011: 1), was used to gather in-depth data and helped me find research participants. I attended youth gatherings, Sunday services, women’s fellowships, bible classes, and prayer nights within one specific Charismatic church community. In addition I also attended other churches and met people from different PCCs, so as to obtain a more complete image of the situation. Furthermore I participated in common daily life activities by going to the markets, by visiting houses and workplaces of participants, by using public transportation, and by having meals together with research participants. During and after each of the activities mentioned, notes were made about the observations.

Research participants

Research participants were church members, pastors, petty street traders, students, and medical professionals. Among them were the key informants: the ladies who’ve had experience being pregnant before marriage and were connected to a PCC church either in their past or in the present time. The twelve ladies were between the age of nineteen and thirty-five years old. Their names – starting with the youngest, ending with the oldest – are Afia, Mercy, Esther, Leticia, Rose, Grace, Elisabeth, Sarah, Mary, Adua, Belinda and Ama. Their first pregnancy happened a few months till eighteen years ago. Eight of these ladies attended a PCC before, during and/or recently after their first pregnancy. Only four of the twelve ladies do not attend a PCC today. The stories of the three women who never attended a PCC continue to be interesting since their experiences of family and peer responses appeared to correlate with the experienced of the other women. The twelve women grew up in Kumasi most of them coming from a lower middle class family, which is representative for the area (Ministry of Finance, Rice 2012, The World Bank). With one exception, none of the ladies completed their education before they gave birth. Five went back to school a certain time after they delivered. Six never had that chance. The youngest, Afia, recently delivered but plans to

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11 go back soon. Her mother will take care of the baby girl while Afia is at school. Many mothers of these ladies took care of their newly born grandchildren. The majority of them still do. Ten of the twelve ladies still live together with their parent(s). Only one of the ladies continued her relationship with the father of her first born, all the other relationships soon ended after pregnancy. Only four got married or have a fiancé today. The table below shows some basic information about the key informants.

Name Age now Age at first pregnancy Educational level during pregnancy Attends a PCC now Attended a PCC during pregnancy Attended a PCC before pregnancy

Afia 19 19 Still in JHS Yes Yes Yes

Mercy 20 18 Still in JHS No No Yes

Esther 22 19 Still in JHS No No No

Leticia 28 19 Still in JHS Yes No No

Rose 28 22 Still in SHS Yes Yes Yes

Grace 28 26 University

graduate

Yes No Yes

Elisabeth 31 17 Still in JHS Yes Yes Yes

Sarah 31 28 SHS graduate Yes No Yes

Mary 33 25 SHS graduate Yes No No

Adua 33 19 Still in SHS No No No

Belinda 35 16/17 Still in JHS Yes No No

Ama 36 13 Still in primary

school

No No No

Interviews

Interviews with the research participants were taken during and after church gatherings, but most often at the appointed time in (front of) the house of the participant. The semi-structured interviews served to give more personal and sensitive information on the subject. Interviews were conducted with health professionals, pastors, and women who’ve had experience with early pregnancy. Some of the interviews had a follow up when certain questions remained unanswered after the first interview. I noticed this lack of information after playing the recordings some days after the first interview. The interview recordings were not transcribed in the field, but later back home. Twenty-six semi-structures interviews were conducted, of which only two were not recorded. During or soon after these two interviews notes were made.

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Focus group discussions

Focus group discussions were useful to acquire some of the general ideas on the explanations, the social and moral conventions and the responses concerning early pregnancies in society according to this specific group. I organized focus groups discussions with the youth- and the women’s ministries of one Charismatic church, and had one focus group discussion with a class from Junior High School. I chose for the high school class, because people told me most pregnant teenagers are in these schools and I hoped to find some young women through this group discussion. I chose to talk with the youth and the women’s ministries in church to get an idea of the possible different opinions of these two generations concerning the issue of early pregnancy. The discussions among the church members where held during their weekly meetings on Monday- and Tuesday evenings. The discussion with the high school students took place in their classroom. All discussions were recorded and notes were made during and after the meetings. Besides these arranged group discussions, one group discussion occurred spontaneously among four university students when I came to visit one of them in their hostel room and explained my purpose of stay in Ghana.

Media analyses and informal talks

To gain a better understanding of general ideas and responses to early pregnancies, I kept an eye on the online news concerning this topic. Furthermore, I spoke to the petty street traders where I bought my groceries, to the guys from the arts shops on my way to church, to students of both university and high school level, and to the employees of the guesthouse where I stayed. These informal talks contributed to my understanding of the general viewpoints on early pregnancy. Again, notes were made during or quickly after the talks.

Challenges, ethics and rapport

To talk about the sensitive subject of early pregnancies, wasn’t always easy. Most man were willing to talk about sexual expected behavior and societal responses but usually only in general terms. Young adult ladies hardly spoke about sexuality in general, let alone that they told me about their own experiences. According to the American Anthropological Association the researcher must “protect the physical, social, and psychological welfare and to honor the dignity and privacy of those studied” (AAA 1971). I learned to respect and accept the fact that sometimes people were unwilling to answer certain questions or talk about specific

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13 experiences (of their past). The research subject was more sensitive than I expected. Due to the high prevalence of teenage pregnancies I expected people to be comfortable talking about it. Instead people seemed deliberately silence about certain issues. By noticing these words of silence I found a pattern of invisibilization. The ostensibly exercised discretion about young adult pregnant girls and their sexuality made it difficult to find girls in such situations. Time did not permit me to wait for these girls to pop up from their hiding places. Therefore I decided to change my approach in a retrospective one which relies on the memory of people. Instead of trying to look for girls who were pregnant at the moment, I chose to focus on those women who had gone through the experience of premarital pregnancy during the past years of their lives. By asking them to look back at their lives and how they went through experiences, questions concerning this discreet subject were answered. I realize there are some implications with this type of approach. Human memory is strong, but not all that reliable as we humans tend to change the past by choosing to forget some parts and focus on remembering others (Antze & Lambek 1996). Still, collecting multiple parts of the memories is enough to make a substantial analysis of the subject. After all, this research is about the experiences of these women. What they remembered about their pasts is important to them and therefore important for this research. The twelve ladies told me not everything about their past and present experiences, I had to respect that, but the given information is certainly valuable and complete enough to use for a study of this format.

During the research I made sure all the women together with the other informants gave informed consent before participation. Nevertheless there were circumstances during the fieldwork in which informed consent of the individual informant was not enough. I learned that it is advisable in some situations to inform an elder or person of authority about the research procedure and ask permission before the approached informant is allowed to participate. To approach church members in the context of a PCC I had to first get allowance of the senior pastor, and in one occasion even from the pastor in charge over the region. Due to this time consuming procedure of the latter case, I choose not to develop the research in this church but to go for churches with a more accessible policy. Another challenge concerning informed consent occurred after the interview with Mercy. She gave me permission for an interview and for the recording of this interview. But her father became highly upset when he saw me doing the interview with Mercy. I assumed that Mercy was entitled to decide for herself and that her parents knew about the interview (and/or approved of it), but they didn’t. I had to delete the recording and left the crying Mercy alone with her still angry father. On my way back I wrote down all I remembered of this event, especially the

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14 reaction of her father, since it was very valuable in the light of understanding a pattern of invisibilization of the issue that I began to see. While Mercy had given me her consent to listen to her story, I decided to still use the information I gathered that morning. Although most of the research participants gave permission for the use of their real names. I decided to anonymize them all, including the churches, due to the sensitivity of the subject.

Paul

Most of these 'experienced' women I met through pastor Paul, the junior pastor of the Charismatic church I often visit and my assistant in the field. This twenty-three year old young men graduated from Bible school in 2013 and worked as an ordained pastor multiple churches before he started ministering at this Charismatic church in the central suburb of Kumasi. He was only twenty-three and the youngest pastor in his church, but due to his age also very close to the church's youth. Paul was in courtship and planned to get married before the end of 2014. But there were still many women showing their interest in him. Paul enjoyed talking with older and younger women and knew many of them, in and outside the church. His senior pastor Mark at first asked Paul to assist me in going to a traditional wedding. He had no choice but to obey. It was after this set up appointment, that Paul came with suggestions himself. He introduced me to the only young adult unmarried pregnant Pentecost church member I met, Afia, whom I contacted at a fellowship Paul organized on Wednesday mornings. After Afia he arranged more interviews with ‘experienced’ ladies, but also with pastors, doctors and students. People seemed to trust him as they spoke freely in his presence. People even specifically asked him to stay when we gave them the option for Paul to leave the conversation when there was no need for him to do a translation. Paul joined me in most of the interviews and did the translations, if that was necessary. His English was pretty good, and he translated directly from Twi as accurate as possible. Though, sometimes he became too enthusiastic about the subject and started adding his own ideas to the conversation. At first this annoyed me and I had to ask questions again to make sure I knew the answer of the interviewee, instead of Paul’s own answer. Later I realized this could also be supportive to my study, when I allowed him to speak more about his ideas – doing a little interview with him in between the official interview – and asked him to help me out asking questions during interviews. Very soon he knew the kind of questions I aimed to ask, so when I overlooked some he asked the questions on my behalf. Through Paul I did not only find a lot informants, I also gathered more data because of his contribution/participation to the interviews.

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Limitations

Though Paul translated the conversation for me, language was one of the limitations of this research because I couldn’t understand the local language. Paul tried to translate as precise as possible, but it is likely he missed some things. And though I tried to check the information Paul gave me by repeating questions, I can never tell whether I fully obtained the information the participant shared. Therefore I have to agree with Bleek (1978: 3) that being able to speak the local language of the participants benefits an ethnographic research. Next time I will definitely take time to learn the language.

Another thing I learned during this fieldwork is to be more proactive. In the first weeks of the research I was tending to wait for the promised appointments, but they never came until I made a move to make them happen. Also my own shyness limited me to approach the young adult church members of my age when they didn’t come to me first. Furthermore, my interpretation of the data could be another limitation. As an anthropologist your main research tool is you. Which questions were asked at what time to whom, all depended on me. The data I gathered through the talks, observations and interviews were all analyzed by me. Though objectivity was pursued, subjectivity cannot be denied. The outcome written in this thesis is therefore subjective to my interpretations, to my way of looking at the things. Other people might conclude otherwise.

The short period of time also brought its limitations to the study. It limited the extensiveness of the research. The pregnant young adult ladies I was not able to meet within this time, I might have been able to meet when I would have had a longer research period. To give an example, in my second but last week I met a midwife who told me about the many pregnant teenagers that come to her maternity home each month. Besides this, due to the sensitive topic trust is necessary in order for people to open up. And gaining trust most often takes time. Though I am pleased with the information the informants were willing to give me, people might have shared more when they would have had more time to get to know me even better.

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Theoretical framework

The pregnancy of young adults is considered a big problem in Ghana. These ‘early pregnancies’ are not in line with the social agendas or conventions of the social relations of these young women. Parents, peers and churches often regard an adolescent girl as being too young and (financially) dependent to become a mother. It is too early for that. As the literature confirms, motherhood belongs to adulthood (Lee 2012: 172). This chapter will describe the theories on experience and behavior of youth in Africa in relation to their social contexts. Starting with the explanation of the phenomenon of ‘navigating youth’, discussed in the eponymous book of Christiansen et al. (2006) and here explained by the works of several other scholars too. The significance of the concept of social navigation of youth can only be understood if placed in the context of conventions that exist in society concerning the life course of an individual that ultimately are seen to lead to full adulthood. I continue therefore with a description of the theories on life course and the conventions youth are confronted with. Ending with an explanation of invisibilization and the way in which the process of invisibilization could be a response to youth behavior.

Navigating Youth

Youth in general, and African youth in particular have increasingly been discussed in academic debates that address,, among others, the grave situations in which many African youth find themselves (Abbink & Kessel 2005, Christiansen et al. 2006, Buck et al. 2012, Honwana & Boeck 2005, Johnson-Hanks 2002, Langevang 2008, Lee 2012). Age and social status of youth bring them in “relatively powerless positions”, and therefore young adults more likely experience suffering (Lee 2012: 167). Abbink & Kessel (2005: 1) delineate the overall situation of youth in Africa as quite problematic since youth face;

“tremendous odds and do not seem to have the future in their own hands [and while] there has been progress in some respect – for example, in education, migration and job opportunities in the urban arena – the exponential population increase and the fierce competition for resources within the contexts of malfunctioning or failing states have led to a relative decline in the well-being and social advancement of young people in Africa.”

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17 Many young adults in Africa blame the adults for their problems since they – according to these youth – gave up on them (Abbink & Kessel 2005: 7). And indeed in the midst of the “impoverished and internally divided wholes” caused by the crumbling social order and cultural integrity, families are struggling to cater for their youth (Abbink & Kessel 2005: 2). Like other African youth, Ghanaian youth as shown in the study of Langevang (2008: 2045) are ‘managing’ their lives as they try to govern their fate and show their resilience. These youth navigate options and possible trajectories to gain future possibilities and chances, a practice Vigh (2006) conceptualized as ‘social navigation’.

Vigh (2006: 13) describes social navigation as the practice of “evaluating the movement of the social environment, one’s own possibilities for moving through it, and its effects on one’s planned and actual movement”. Langevang (2008: 2040) describes this concept as “the way agents simultaneously seek to move within the social terrain and are moved by it, thus paying attention to the interplay between agency and structure”. Young people show a so-called ‘agency response’ (Abbink & Kessel 2005: 8) as they construct “geographies of exclusion and inclusion” (Hanwana & De Boeck 2005: 1). They “move and shape the social environments in which their lives are set [and] seek to escape confining structures and navigate economic, social and political turmoil” (Christiansen et al. 2006: 9). They play an active role realizing and transforming the social structures they live in (Abbink & Kessel 2005: 9). Many youths are eager “to take up anything that may relieve them of conditions of poverty, idleness or ennui” (Abbink & Kessel 2005: 3). Youth in Africa are active in “all fronts of African popular culture (music, theatre, fashion), religious revival, new indigenous NGOs, the creative appropriations of ICT in Africa, and [or] of course sport” (Abbink & Kessel 2005: 3) and thereby seek their ways out of a life of misfortune.

In the same way, large numbers of young adults all over Africa become involved in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches that “holds out the promise of regeneration and collective power with transnational resonance” and create “new networks of opportunity” (Abbink & Kessel 2005: 20). Christiansen et al (2006: 19) argue that these Christian movements can be understood as “youthful gestures of self-creation in public space”. They further state that in the “born-again context” salvation is proclaimed and youth be empowered by the Holy Spirit while they break their kinship ties, and thereby “enhance divine influence and reduce the risk of other people interfering in the progress of the person’s life (Christiansen et al. 2006: 19).

While youth do their best to overcome their problems, they are increasingly considered to be a problem too, as the works of Abbink & Kessel (2005), Christiansen et al.

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18 (2006) and Honwana & De Boeck (2005) show. “When children are classified as youths there is a tendency to shift the conceptualizations from victims (…) to social actors who may contribute to the maintenance or spread of troubles that are burdening their societies” (Christiansen et al. 2006: 19). Honwana & De Boeck (2005: 50) describe how some African youth changed their fate from being the victims by becoming perpetrators, and thereby also turned themselves into a problem for their society. Halpern argues that sexual activity of adolescents is often framed as problem behavior (2010: 6). Halpern argues that the sexual activity of youth in particular is concerned to be a problem, because apart from the health risks “its undesirability is primarily a function of age and assumed immaturity” (2010: 6). When and why the social environment of youth considers them as a problem is debatable. Youth being a problem is socially constructed, it is formed by meanings, notions and connotations of people. It is when young adults do not conform to the conventions of their social relations and negatively influence the social structure, that young adults are seen problematic. One can argue that youth have been considered problematic for exactly those reasons. What is special about the position of youth in the present time is that youth these days (have to) navigate their trajectories in order to benefit themselves and their social relations which entails decision-making that could be considered wrong to one social group but right to another. They manage their lives in less fixed trajectories, because their social relations all have quite different ideas about ‘the right’ life course .

Life course and conventions

People have certain ideas and visions on the development they and their fellowmen are supposed to make in life. There are multiple concepts that describe this. Life-cycle is one of these as it conceptualizes different stages of a formation of maturity “as being fairly fixed and linear with predictable transition phases” (Holland & Peace 2012: 163). The opposite became the concept of navigation which leaves room for agency as people do not necessarily transit from one position to the next “in line” but rather move between these stages by one’s choice and situation. Life-course theory is a little more dynamic than life-cycle as it conceptualizes development as a trajectory, and emphasizes “ interactive relationships of biological, behavioral and social-contextual factors, [and it focusses] on how those relationships may be changed by variable timing and sequences of life experiences and transitions” (Harpern 2010: 6). Within the life line one enters and leaves the stages of childhood, youth and adulthood (Langevang 2008: 2040). These positions are “intricately tied to social processes” and are

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19 developed by authorities as well as by the actors themselves (Christiansen et al. 2006: 12). “Youth is both a social position which is internally and externally shaped and constructed, as well as part of a larger societal and generational process, a state of becoming” (Christiansen et al. 2006: 11). In a life-course perspective the idea that women have to become mothers someday is common, but the appropriate time to transit from this position to the other is, likewise the idea that women have reproduce, socially constructed.

Yet, according to Christiansen et al. (2006: 12) it is only possible to understand and study the navigating behavior of African youth when we see them as “social shifters” both being positioned by others and seeking to position themselves. Scholars should, according to Christiansen et al. (2006: 16), balance [their] analyses “between the ways young people see and interpret the world and the ways they are positioned in it as part of families and societies (or how families and societies see them)”, to make sense of the actions of young people. The positioning by others are determined by the conventions of the social relations of authority in the lives of youth. Family or kin, churches and peers are such groups which all have their own visions on the development of their young adults. Their ideas on when and under what conditions a person is considered a youth or and adult impact the lives of adolescents. When young Africans are positioned to be youth or make a transition to adulthood is not bound to a specific time or place. Behaviors marking the transition to adulthood have changed. Leaving the home, finishing education, acquiring a job, marrying and having children are no longer the normative sequence (Halpern 2010: 6). Such conventions of a life-course still exist and have a significant influence on the lives of youth, though the ascribed time in which these conventions supposed to occur in a youth’s life is not necessarily corresponding among the different social agendas. Youth have to navigate in order to fulfill at least some of the conventions.

“Routes from youth to adulthood are becoming increasingly diversified and uncertain”, Langevang explained (2008: 2040). The transitions between life stages are fluid (Langevang 2008: 2040, Lee 2012: 166). “But there is no universal physically or psychologically defined threshold over which one passes from one phase to another. (..) People move and manipulate the category according to the situation they are in to the fact that youth is differently defined and lived in different social and cultural contexts, and (..) people can move - and are moved – back and forth between different generational positions” (Christiansen et al. 2006: 14). Some aspects of life may occur earlier than expected, while others delay in the line of expectations (Lee 2012: 166, Langevang 2008: 2040, 2046). For example, being a mother is an adult position but being still dependent (financially) on her

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20 parents makes the lady a youth. Or like Lee (2012: 172) describes, youth who take parental responsibilities for siblings are “forced to move quickly along the social trajectory as they take on an adult role”. Classically young people will be seen as youth “when able to procreate and as adults when actually having procreated and acquired a family” (Christiansen et al. 2006: 14). Parenthood could be seen as a so-called ‘vital conjuncture’ which Johnson-Hanks (2002: 871) defines as ‘a socially structured zone of possibility that emerges around specific periods of potential transformation in a life or lives. It is a temporary configuration of possible change, a duration of uncertainty and potential’. Becoming a parent often changes the position of the person into an adult ‘responsible’ position (Langevang 2008: 2043), but that isn’t necessarily is a positive development in the eyes of the young women and their social relations.. It could be seen as problematic when this pregnancy happened too early in life according to the social agendas, for instance when it happens premarital (Langevang 2008: 2044-2045).

Youth exhibit resilience when they navigate their possibilities strategically – for instance the options of having a premarital relationship or not, of having premarital sex or not, of using contraceptives or not – drawing on social relations that are supportive and avoiding those “that may harm them and their households” (Lee 2012: 167). Youth as social navigators of their present and individual and collective futures (Christiansen et al. 2006: 21, Langevang 2008: 2046-47) with their high utilization of urban Africa, have a significant impact on the urban space (Langevang 2008: 2046-2047). “Through their practices they produce, reproduce and sometimes challenge prevailing ideas of both urban space and of what it means to be a young man or woman” (Langevang 2008: 2046-2047).

Invisiblization

Though young Africans may challenge dominant ideas of how to be a young adult, these prevailing ideas still continue to exist and impact their lives, positions and social structure. It is part of the public sphere, a concept by Jürgen Habermas (1962) which concerns an open accessible realm in which communities of individuals form public opinions. Habermas explains how the public is formed by a joined group of private people and how this relates to authority, status and prestige. The private sphere relates to the families, the society and the economy. Habermas describes the public space as a social space in which views, opinions and commentaries about social events are rendered open; i.e. a space where ‘öffentlichkeit’ is produced and made available. The public space makes it possible for people to openly discuss

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21 and disclose their ideas and critiques on sensitive (political) topics which otherwise would be kept private, hidden or concealed. People from all social-economic backgrounds participate in this space to develop a public opinion. Habermas (1962) argues that in modern democratic states – like Ghana – things that used to reside in the private sphere now moved into the public, and public opinion have become manipulative by interest groups.

Churches are such groups of interest, strongly advertising their visions and commentating on social ills. PCCs are in a position in which they can participate in the public space advertising their church visions, and thereby manipulate the public opinion. What this means in practice is that much more, including youths’ behavior, is been discussed (and judged) in the public sphere to which these Churches are increasingly contributing. Though Habermas notion of “öffentlichkeit” makes certain discussion visible and open for the public, it doesn’t necessarily mean that what is made visible or open will be judged. But it is possible. Being openly judged and harmed is something most people will try to avoid. Pregnancy before marriage is an abomination according to PCCs (Addai 2000: 331), and as earlier mentioned also not preferred to happen according to the convention of the family.

A possible way to avoid open discussion about one’s members’ wrong-doing is, I suggest, through the process of invisibilization. This is indicating a range of actions that intend to make invisible what shouldn’t be visible according to certain conventions. The process of invisibilization is deployed when certain markers of deviance or otherness – like race in the study of Benedicto (2008) about the identification of upper class Filipinos with “global gayness”, and in case of this research the premarital pregnancy that is deviating from the conventions – have a negative connotation in the sight of the public (Benedicto 2008: 293). In case of Briscoe’s study about the way how young Mexican American women negotiate academic conflicts, the process of invisibilization meant taking away people’s agency by repeatedly excluding the person, which made people question whether one was worth participating at all which resulted in people not daring to participate (2009: 240-244). Invisibilization equals “seemingly disappearance or fall of the political radar” as the study of Dobrowolsky about immigrant women in Canada (2008: 466) demonstrated. Hammond (2008: 519) refers to “a particular brand of marginalization that effectively removes people from the gaze of the public [and] the government”, when she talks about invisibilization (Hammond 2008: 519). Hammond argues that invisibilization could be a political tool that allows authorities to escape their accountabilities in relation to those invisibilized (2008: 519-520). Hammond (2008: 520) uses the work of Roberts’ (1991: 121) when she describes how invisibility results from the powerlessness of those being

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22 marginalized to change their living conditions. “The invisible participate in their invisibility by acting as if they are visible, accepting other definitions of who they are, and, in essence, playing by the rules of a game in which they are not viewed as meaningful participants”, Hammond (2008: 520) explained. A visible wrong-doing like an early pregnancy in the life of a youth is likely to be invisibilized, but the question is how do people practice this invisibilization of young pregnant women and for what reasons.

Invisibilization, a result of too much navigation?

The conventions of the social relations on the life course of a young adult female Ghanaian are leading these young women into navigating practices whereby they try to make their way while satisfying their social relations and themselves. Through navigating they often fulfill the expectations of their social relations, but circumstances continue to occur in which a youth cannot please everyone. What will be the response of the social relations when such situations occur? How and why will these young adult females become a problem to a Ghanaian society? Youth whom are already subject to the authorities in society show their resilience in the development of their social positioning. But what is left of the agency of a young Ghanaian lady when she gets pregnant before marriage and happens to be invisibilized by her social relations? This study will describe the conventions and social agendas of PCCs, families and the peers of young adult women in Kumasi, Ghana and describe how the process of invisibilization seemed to be deployed by these groups of authority as a political tool to ensure their social reputation.

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A life of challenges

To grow up as a young lady in Kumasi, Ghana is not always easy. And early pregnancy doesn’t happen without a context. Each of the women I spoke with has her own story to tell. None of them had an easy life. All of them grew up in the same urban society of Kumasi. To understand more about these twelve ladies, their circumstances and the responses of their environment, this chapter will introduce the social context in which Ghanaian youth - in particular young adult Ghanaian women - grow up. This chapter will shed light on the many explanations of teenage pregnancy given by Ghanaian society and describe the subsequent responses of society including those of PCCs, in regard to the issue of teenage pregnancy. The data is based on media analyses, reports and conducted interviews. It will start by an introduction to the problem shown through the demographic statistics and the public discussion about the issue. The next paragraphs will describe the structural determinants of early pregnancies. Followed by a description of the PCCs and their response to the issue.

Demographical statistics

The urban population in Ghana has increased since the day the country gained its independence. With less than a quarter living in the urban areas in 1960, the proportion raised up to more than fifty percent of the population living in urban areas today (Korboe & Williams 2012: 15, Faracque-Vitkovic et al. 2008: 1-2, GSS 2013: 53). Kumasi is the second largest city of the country and has a population density of 5,782 people per square kilometer and more than two million inhabitants (Korboe & Williams 2012: 15, GSS 2013: 227). Quite busy so to say. But not for the benefit of its inhabitants. Though the poverty rate in rural areas is still higher, it is also on the rise in the cities (Korboe & Williams 2012: 16, Faracque-Vitkovic et al. 2008: 4). More than twenty percent of the total urban population are young adult women between the age of fifteen and twenty-four (GSS 2012a: 26). According to Korboe & Williams (Korboe and Williams 2012: 8) these young women are “often among those most adversely affected by the pressures [on local services and employment opportunities] and by continuing cultural prejudices and inequalities in power”. Korboe & Williams lists a lot of challenges young adult women face in urban Ghanaian life (Korboe and Williams 2012: 19-24). Their parents send them out to work at a young age, for them to contribute financially to their own school fees. “The majority (73.4%) of urban women as a whole have had some secondary education but very few (6.7%) have participated beyond secondary level” (Korboe & Williams 2012: 25). When they are able to finish their basic

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24 education – which is a nine year program up to the end of Junior High School – they face high unemployment due to a lack of diversification or “increasing competition coupled with fewer opportunities” on the labor market, and more often live in poverty. Though they might not find work outside, work in the house continues (Korboe & Williams 2012: 26). Girls are obliged to help around the house supporting their mothers in doing the domestic tasks, something which isn’t expected from their male siblings. It’s a tough job. But the nurturing role of the family is weakening, and “youth appropriate counseling services” aren’t there to fill that gap (Korboe & Williams 2012: 20). Due to their circumstances, girls are “disproportionately vulnerable” to drop out of school, of which one reason is the occurrence of an early pregnancy (Korboe & Williams 2012: 28, GSS 2012a: 8).

A wide concern

Teenage pregnancy has increased over the past years in Ghana. In 2012 nationwide 750,000 girls between the age of thirteen till nineteen were pregnant. That same year the Ashanti region counted 20,720 of these girls. Last year, 2013 various health centers reported an even higher number of 21,171 teenage girls who were pregnant in the Ashanti region during that year (Abotsi 2014). Note that these are only the recorded cases from the health facilities cooperating with the government. Through a befriended doctor of Paul, I got to know doctor Joseph, a family doctor in the regional teaching hospital Konfo Anokye. I met him for an interview in his room at the policlinic where he told me about his view on the issue as he described the experiences he encountered with young pregnant women who came to his ward often desperately seeking for his medical support. According to doctor Joseph very few young pregnant girls come to the hospitals for antenatal care. Therefore I expect the number to be even higher, and the problem maybe more severe. Many Ghanaians consider the rise of teenage pregnancies a serious problem to society. Doctors, midwives, nurses, teachers, social workers, pastors and ministers express their concern in the media about what they call the youth’s growing appetite for premarital sex, and speak of their worries concerning the health risks and social consequences of early pregnancy (AllAfrica.com 2013, AllGhanaNews.com 2014, Ayibani 2013, SpyGhana.com 2014e, VibeGhana.com 2013a and 2013b). People try to figure out why an increasing number of young women get pregnant before marriage these days. Poverty, broken homes, peer pressure and lack of sexual education are the most mentioned potential causes of teenage pregnancy.

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Public discussion

Poverty or financial hardship is one of the main causes of teenage pregnancy in Ghana according to Jemilla Ariori, the Project Manager at the Accra based NGO called Human Rights Advocacy Centre (Annicchiarico 2013). According to Rosemond Agyeman – the founder of Rosemons Girl Child Foundation in the Ashanti Region (DailyGhuideGhana.com 2014). Poverty and/or lack of financial support as a result of broken homes or divorced parents, contributes to teenagers “drifted into immoral activities, which culminated in unwanted pregnancies” (DailyGhuideGhana.com 2014). Peers may pressure each other into sexual activities, sometimes as an outcome of both broken homes and poverty. One Monday evening I met the members – all mothers – of the women’s ministry at the Charismatic church premises where they normally gather for their weekly fellowship. After a moment of worship and Bible study, we sat down for a focus group discussion on teenage pregnancy and sexual education. During that meeting Ellen – a teacher at a primary school – explained that girls often follow their peers into having boyfriends after noticing that a boyfriend can supply in their need to get ‘nice stuff’. This is an example of what is known as transactional sex, sex in

return of material goods (Moore and Biddlecom 2006). According to the views, girls motivate

each other to get a boyfriend so none of them will lack the nice clothes, shoes and accessories they all want and claim to need. “No man will do anything for free, he will definitely demand sex in return”, pastor Mark stated.

During my daily walk to the church premises or grocery store – depending on my

schedule – I often stopped for a talk with the men of the art shops which I passed by on the

way. One time I discussed my research topic with them. These men ascribed the high amount

of sexually active youth to the movies in which lust instead of love is taught but also to a weakening of the system already prophesied in the Bible. “Guys from our generation (around thirty years) did not dare to look at girls if we were not eighteen years old. We knew we would be excluded from the community is we had sex before that age. So we feared to even watch girls. But that has changed. Now they look for girls anywhere any time. In the olden days the system worked. Nowadays people seek for money everywhere. You see we have come in the ending time in which people do wrong, people die earlier and young people will be disobedient. You see, it is all happening,” one of the artist explained.

Nobody knows the ultimate reason behind the increase of teenage pregnancies these last years. But people with all kinds of professions discuss their views on possible solutions of the issue. Almost every week I get an update in my mailbox about the news concerning early

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26 pregnancies in Ghana. It is news either about a report of new extremely young pregnant students (SpyGhana.com 2014c), or a public call for change by means of a ‘new’ approach. Programs to intensify public awareness on family planning and to increase the access to family planning services are regularly proposed (SpyGhana.com 2014d). Others promote a “comprehensive sex education programme in Senior High Schools to protect girls from unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infection” (VibeGhana.com 2014). Furthermore, many people call on parental responsibility to not deny their children any sexual education (GhanaWeb.com 2014). In that same line Ghana’s president Mahama recently stated: "Fix the family and the life of the nation and community should be on the right footing," (AllAfrica.com 2014). The chairman of the Ghana Coalition of Non-Governmental Organizations in the Central Region calls for “civil society not to rest until there was a drastic change in the attitude of teenagers who are the future leaders” (ModernGhana.com 2013). Apart from (health) education activities, punishment seems another often-mentioned part of the solution. It was reported for example that “The Queen mother of Gomoa Brofo in the Central Region, Nana Amowi III has warned that the traditional authority in the area is bent on punishing any teenager who will be found pregnant as well as the person who impregnated her” (SpyGhana.com 2014c). Many PCCs seemed to

agree with this Queen Motherthat punishment is indeed a good response to the problem, but I will come back to that later.

Structural determinants – Age: respect and shame

The public views on the issue that have just been discussed do not say much about the deeper structural issues of the matter, but there are some structural determinants of early pregnancy. One of which is the age. In Ghana, people often earn respect because of their older age (Van der Geest: 1997). One is supposed to listen to the elders. No matter how harsh they treat you. When a young women gets pregnant before marriage, people often describe it as an act of disobedience to their elders. “When you get pregnant, you wouldn’t get any respect. From no body. Because you didn’t listen to the advises of any elderly person”, explained one of the ladies from the women’s ministry at the time we had a focus group discussion. Being pregnant at a young age is considered a sign of disrespect to the elders. Young women earn respect from their social environment when they are “relatively older and in a manifestly stable marriage-oriented union” Korboe & Williams stated (2012: 74).

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27 This could be the reason why young women are less likely to use biomedical contraceptives (Tawiah 1997: 144). Some university students explained to me why. I was invited by a friend’s niece, to her hostel at the university. When I came there and told her and her roommates about my research a discussion about the issue emerged. One of the students explained why young adult females are less likely to use contraceptives:

“You can’t go to a store to by condoms! You will feel shy. You wouldn’t dare. You know the man behind the desk, especially when it’s an older man, he will look at you thinking you are too young to have sex. You will feel so much embarrassed to buy condoms from him. So no, you wouldn’t dare. Maybe boys, but girls no.”

Apparently young women are not supposed to engage themselves in sexual activities. There seemed to be a certain opinion on who is “too young” to be sexually active. I assume these adult opinions about the appropriate time to have sex are not in line with the ideas of youth, who probably believe it is ok to have sex before that appointed age. But when two generations meet, in for instance a pharmacy, the young adult is likely to feel ashamed to admit he/she is sexually active which assumes the conventions of the elders have a certain authority.

Structural determinants – Gender inequality

Women are the majority in all the regions of Ghana (GSS 2012a: 16 and 2012b: 1) yet men are the dominant decision makers (Boni 2001: 16-20). In terms of gender inequality Bawa and Sanyare (2013: 287-289) argue in their article about women’s participation in Ghanaian politics, that despite the great importance of women in (high end) decision making, men control the political area. Men are considered to be the providers. “A respected adult male must be able continually to support his wife, provide his children with education, reciprocate towards those who raised him, and ideally act as a patron towards the less fortunate and the young”, Langevang argues (2008: 2044). Women are considered to be active on the (labour) market, yet, so Langevang says, “there is less pressure for women to perform” (2008: 2044). The women of the women’s ministry at church didn’t agree to Langevang’s statement. During the focus group discussion they spoke about the hardship they encountered being a women in Ghanaian households. After a fervent discussion in which the women mutually spoke about the gender inequality they faced, the ladies summarized the issue for me, saying:

“Women used to stay at home and take care of the children and the house, but nowadays women have to work too and earn money to make sure their household will

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28 stay well. If we don’t help our husband, our families will suffer. So we work hard, but we are still expected to clean the house, wash, take care of the children, cook.. and open up our legs when he wants to! (laughter) We support our husbands financially, but very few of them support us in the house. Some of them are lazy! We women are suffering more than man.”

In the matrilineal Ashanti community women inherit the family name but men are still highly decisive within the family (Clark 1999: 717-718). Uncles and brothers are highly responsible and more firmly linked to their Ashanti women than the women’s husbands (Clark 1999: 717). When a women gives birth, her brother is as much ‘her reproductive partner as her husband’, he is considered the male mother of the newborn child and is therefore equally responsible for the financial support as the husband (Clark 1999: 721). Although many women also work (mainly in the informal sector) to gain money, “a mother who overemphasizes income-generating work is seen as neglecting her husband, not her children” (Clark 1999: 717). Apparently women are not as free as men to work, but rather are destined to be there for the husband. The idea that the woman supposed to take care of the household and not necessarily make money seemed to explain why women in the region are also less privileged when it comes to education (Senadza 2012, Yeboah 2010: 46). According to Senadza’s study, more than forty percent of the women aged fifteen years and above have had no schooling (compared to sixteen percent of the men) and there is an indication of higher school drop-outs among females (2012: 730). It could be so that the Ashanti kinship system which prefers women to take care of the house and the children, to be of influence on the educational level of young Ashanti women. Their access to education could be denied or limited because they should not think about making money and therefore do not need a higher education to find a well-paid job. Especially when families are poor, caretakers tend to spend their limited resources in educating the boy-child rather than girls (Senadza 2012: 735). Without some education it is difficult to find a job, therefore young women are more likely to end jobless and have to seek for other ways and means to cater for themselves (Ankomah 1996: 45).

Structural determinants – Financial means

When the man provides, the women have to give back by doing these chores as a form of reciprocity. Other forms of reciprocity are money, support and sex. Young women are likely to give sex in return for financial support from a man (Ankomah 1996, Korboe & Williams,

First child? : no! : a late born : a study about the social agendas concerning the lives of young adult female PCC members and the process of invisibilization as response to their premarital pregnancy