Last week, when i stepped down from the car at Ojukwu girls’ hostels in University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, something terrible hit me before i even saw anything else.
The smell.
Not the kind you can ignore. The kind that stays with you. The kind that makes you wonder how anyone is expected to live like this not to talk of study, dream, or become anything.
Bathrooms you can’t step into without holding your breath. Water that doesn’t run. Windows open for "Window Men" to steal at night. Doors that don’t lock. Rooms packed beyond capacity. No privacy. No dignity. Just young girls trying to survive each day in a place that quietly strips them of self-worth.
And that’s where the conversation everyone avoids begins.
Because what happens next is not random.
When a teenage girl cannot bathe safely…
When she cannot sleep in peace…
When her own hostel feels like a punishment…
She starts looking for an escape.
Not because she’s wayward.
Not because she lacks home training.
But because she’s tired.
Tired of managing filth.
Tired of feeling less than human.
So a man offers a better space, a cleaner room, water, light, comfort.
And slowly, survival turns into compromise.
It doesn’t start with “promiscuity.”
It starts with relief.
Then comes dependency.
Then comes pressure.
Then comes mistakes that carry lifelong consequences.
And one day, she’s pregnant.
And society, in its usual cruelty, asks:
“Where are her parents?”
“Why are girls like this?”
But nobody asks the harder question:
What kind of environment did we abandon her to?
We keep pretending morality exists in isolation.
It doesn’t.
Environment shapes choices.
And when you place teenagers in conditions that constantly strip them of dignity, you shouldn’t be shocked when they begin to make desperate decisions just to feel human again.
This is not just about dirty hostels.
This is about how a system quietly pushes young girls into situations they never planned for and then turns around to blame them for surviving it.
If we’re serious about reducing teenage pregnancy…
If we truly care about protecting the future of these girls…
Then we need to stop looking away.
Because sometimes, the difference between discipline and desperation is just the condition of where a girl lays her head at night.
@aibytekat Is the aim of communication no longer understanding again??? Please, let us not over complicate this world.. There are more salient problems to be solved than these..
@OlayemiKomolaf4 Where did you conduct the research that brought about this conclusion, what was the duration of the experiment, what methodology and statistical tool did you use to make this deduction???
@dammiedammie35@ceedeeqeew It is funny how we commonise things that we should be making efforts to change... Last Last, we will reap the fruits we are sowing