Young single motherhood: Contested notions of motherhood and sexuality in policy discourses/program interventions

There has been a growing world wide concern about young single motherhood commonly referred in policy discourses as 'teenage pregnancy'. Non-governmental organization have designed different interventions both for control and inclusion of young mothers in society. Such interventions, though well meaning have been based on specific assumptions about 'teenage pregnancy'. This study recasts the issue by focusing on these women as 'young single mothers/women' and offers a perspective on implicit and tacit assumptions that underlie program interventions by non-governmental organizations working with them. It demonstrates how such interventions have tended to conflate young single mothers as social group living under problematic conditions with teenage pregnancy as a social problem. By drawing out the assumptions that inform the program intervention of a young mother's project in Machakos district Kenya this study interrogates these from the perspective of their ability to bring about transformation when working with young single mothers. By drawing on alternative constructions by young single mothers, the study highlights the limitations of such a perspective by demonstrating how attention is deflected from key structural issues that are necessary for effectively intervening in the case of young single motherhood. By locating the problematic within the redistribution/recognition paradigm, this study demonstrates that it is not the physical/biological characteristics (age and unmarried/illegitimate motherhood) of young single mothers, but the locales and discourses within which their motherhood is situated that should be problematised.

The study suggests an alternative way of imagining young single mothers as social actors who can organize and form alliances to seek redress to injustices they face in society.