This association is unsurprising given the purpose and content of initiation rites described above, however it points to the relative weakness of parental influence on adolescent choices where formal systems exist to mark young people's passage into an adult world from the age of 10 or 12 years. Early sexual experience and high rates of pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and forced sex in the region suggest this lack of communication has a harmful impact on adolescent well-being (Juma et al., It is also experienced as frustrating and disempowering by adolescents themselves (Thorpe, 2005). Criticising the young for their 'immoral ways' through rose-tinted spectacles on one's own youth is neither a new phenomenon nor particular to this region.