Mathare Slum
Current Situation in Mathare Valley
Mathare Valley is characterized by overcrowding with inadequate housing,
lack of cleaning drinking water, playing grounds, social amenities, inadequate
sewerage, and uncollected waste and high unemployment rate among the productive
age group. For many years, the area has experienced social exclusion and
relative lack of support.
The area is also considered by authority as illegal settlements and as such,
there are frequent evictions and fire outbreak to remove people by the ‘private
developer’.
At the family level, most families are female headed household while both
women and men work in low income job sector which is unreliable. This has
greatly affected parents’ ability to make spend ample time with their
child and also make meaningful contribution towards their children’s
upbringing and education. Hence children are left to spend a considerable
more time with their peers who influence their behavior and relationships
established.
Therefore young people (aged 13 - 25) are faced with uncertainty regarding
their future as they are ill prepared for the challenges that come along
with adulthood responsibilities. Young people lack adequate life skills
and reproductive health information to make informed decisions regarding
their sexuality.
The result has been high rate of teenage pregnancies, crime, sexually transmitted
infections (STIs), low level of education, low acquisition of employability
skills and enrolment in secondary and higher education especially amongst
the girls. Due to the high levels of poverty and unemployment youths in
the area have been recruited into the local vigilante groups which are used
by politicians as ‘violence tool’ during election period. All
these challenges have a very big impact on the lives of young girls and
women in the community.