Buduburam Camp: Roundtable on Camps' Teen Motherhood Issue

Little Liberia.
A community of about 40,000 people, Buduburam today seemed more like a town than a 'camp.' I hear that this is the trend for long term refugees, they have to create a new life and a new town wherever they land. Many of the Liberians in this community have been at the camp for almost a decade.

I met several women at the camp, some who were volunteers for the WISE program (WISE is a womens' empowerment non governmental organization operating at this refugee camp).
They organized a dialgue with fifteen teenage mothers at the camp, to discuss why teenage motherhood has become such an issue at Buduburam.

According to a recent survey, about two-thirds of the girls did not want to become pregnant in the first place and also felt forced into unprotected sex because their partners refused to use a condom. Keep this in mind.

Now, where I come from the phrase "forced sex" has a shorter term. But in our entire 1.5 hours meeting I did not hear one person say the word. One of the clinical psychologists working at the program explained to me that in this community "rape" was the term used when you did not know a man who forced themselves onto you. Otherwise - people say phrases like "forced sex."

Frankly - I think that to have any effect on the way sex is 'forced' at this camp, somebody is going to have to sit down with (and in my few, perhaps jail some) the men at the camp. Do I have too much of a law-and-order lens on this issue?

It wasn't just semantics that bothered me. One of the counselors there asked for the young mothers to please tell her and other staff the names of the men who are fathers to their children, so that they can follow-up and educate that young father.

will finish post later...gotta go