18-year-old Masaaba uses sign language to empower deaf girls

Jan 16, 2020

Masaaba, now a mother of an 11-month baby; says everything started changing after losing her hearing sense.

CHILD MARRIAGES  TEENAGE PREGNANCIES 

Clad in an orange t-shirt and black skirt, the eighteen-year-old  Rebecca Masaaba ascends to the podium with other adolescent girls for a panel discussion.

They had been given an opportunity to discuss the pressing issues affecting their lives.

It is during this session that Masaaba, a peer-educator revealed her story; which turned her into a young mother. 

But unlike other girls, Masaaba also has a hearing impairment and uses sign language to communicate.

It is upon her past life, that she got the inspiration to turn into a peer educator to educate young girls with the same impairment in Mbale on the implications of child marriage and early pregnancy.

Child marriages and teenage pregnancies are closely related to high levels of school drop-outs. According to the 2011 Uganda Demographic Health Survey (UDHS), 15% of ever-married women aged 20 - 49yrs were married by the age of 15 while 49% were married by the age of 18.

This was during the Second National Girls Summit, organised by the Girls Not Brides Uganda, a consortium of 90 Civil Society Organisation (CSOs) focusing on ending child marriage. The event was sponsored by Joy for Children Uganda (JFC-U), Ministry of Gender, and Girls Not Brides Global Community among others.

Masaaba, now a mother of an 11-month baby; says everything started changing after losing her hearing sense.

Dropping out of school  

"I was born hearing, but I later lost my hearing sense at about 14-years. I can't tell what happened," she said through an interpreter. She says her parents tried several doctors but nothing could be done about it.

She was later taken to the Mulago School of the Deaf to continue where she completed her Primary education. She joined Mbale Secondary School for the Deaf, where she only studied for two years and her parents stopped paying her school fees.

"I do not know why. They just stopped paying my school fees. They started giving excuses but my other siblings were studying. I knew they had started looking at me as useless," she narrates.

As time went on, Masaaba realised her parents were no longer caring about her like before.

"I was in my adolescent stage. I needed many things but they cared less. I used to help them out at their shop," she recalls.

 

 

 

Forced into marriage 

She says a man used to frequent their shop on a daily basis talking to her parents.

"I was not bothered. I thought they were just friends because I could not hear what they were saying," she notes.

Masaaba says she later realized that her parents were negotiating with the man to marry her off without her consent.

"I think they had already reached an agreement privately. They just called me and introduced me to the man, saying he is your husband. I thought it was a joke but they insisted and forced me to love him. I tried to resist, cried but I had no one to come to my rescue," she adds.

Masaaba recalls one day while returning home from the shop alone in the night, the man got her along the way and took her to his place and forced her into sex.

"I could not shout because of my impairment. I stayed at his place for about seven days and my parents knew what was going on. When I developed sings of pregnancy, he took off and I returned to my parents' home from where I gave birth," she notes.

Becoming a peer educator

She recalls as one of the events, the head of the association of the deaf invited girls for training which had been organized by Hunger Project.

"They sensitized us on many things including sexual reproductive health issues and how we can deal with our problems. I was very active and I was chosen to be a peer educator because of my communication skills, courage and having been a victim," she says.

That is when, Masaaba realized, that she needed to start helping other deaf girls not to fall, victims of child marriage, and early pregnancy.

Why?

"I realized there was a need to help my fellow peers with the same impairment for them to make informed choices. Many deaf girls are ignorant and lack information to empower them," she notes.

She says through their association with support from Hunger Project and other sponsorships, they organize workshops where she talks to deaf girls on their sexual reproductive health.

She stresses that many deaf girls are still young and face similar challenges she went through.

"I can't allow them to experience what I went through, because it is not easy. Men like taking advantage of the deaf because many are neglected by their parents and isolated in their families. So this stigma leads them into temptations," she adds.

She says her parents have on several occasions tried to force her into another relationship which has rejected. "I do not want them to fall in the same trap. I know where to run for help. That's why these girls need to be helped," Masaaba adds.

At times, she moves to families where the deaf girls come from to talk to them. "I move with an interpreter to these families and talk to the parents of these girls. This has also helped to change the perceptions of the parents whose children are deaf," she notes.

Challenges faced by deaf girls

Given the nature of the impairment, deaf girls are vulnerable, they can easily be sexually harassed.

"Most of the deaf girls are always sexually harassed. Just because we can't shout like other normal girls, rapists always take advantage of us," she says.

She notes that on many occasions, girls fail to get help from the police due to the problem of language barrier.

"When we report any case to police, officers at the desk just look on and at times just ignore without recording anything. Even when we visit health facilities, we are ignored because they cannot understand what we are trying to communicate," Masaaba says.

Many parents also do not want to educate them (deaf girls), calling them useless in life, the reason they force many into marriage.

"They are seen as property. We are isolated in our own families," she adds.

Special program for deaf girls

The Regional Director Hunger Project East Africa, Daisy Owomugasho explains that they developed a special program to empower deaf girls after realizing the problems they were facing.

"We realized these girls are more vulnerable because of their multiple complications. The deaf are helpless because they cannot speak out like other people. They are victims of child marriage and early pregnancy," she says.

Hunger project is now using Masaaba as an ambassador to easily talk to other girls with the same impairment.

"We realized her story alone can change them. Some were dropping out of school after being lured by men. Others follow what others do," he says.

Owomugisha says they also train the girls in various skills including catering, tailoring, hairdressing and making crafts. She says the program interacts with 200 girls in Mbale.

"Deaf girls need special attention to help them in accessing various services," she notes.

Statistics from World Bank shows that 40% of Uganda women get married before the age of 18, and 10% become wives by the time they turn. The 2013 World Vision study ranked Uganda 16th among the 25 countries with the highest rates of early marriages where about 12% girls are married before 15yrs and 46% are married before the age of 18yrs.

The JFC-U, executive director also chairman for GNBU, Moses Ntenga says the national prevalence is child marriage in Uganda at about 40% compared to Kenya which is about 22% and Tanzania at about 30%.

He stresses that there is a need to end the vice and introduce a special program for the victims of child marriage and early pregnancy to complete.

"If nothing is done; it will lead to abject poverty and a more illiterate population. Child marriage creates a cycle of poverty as young mothers remain a burden on their families and spouses who might also not be able to look after their family given their education backgrounds," Ntenga notes.

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