Poverty has never been a crime, yet in many ways society treats it as one, and girls often pay the highest price for this warped perception. To be born into poverty is not a choice, and to grow up in deprivation is not a fault of character or ambition. Yet across our schools, our justice system, and our communities, girls from poor backgrounds are punished, stigmatized, and excluded in ways that perpetuate cycles of disadvantage. What should be a collective responsibility to uplift them becomes an institutionalised system of blame and penalty. The result is a silent but destructive culture of punishing girls simply because they were born on the wrong side of privilege.
At the heart of this injustice lies the way poverty intersects with gender. A poor boy is disadvantaged, but a poor girl is disadvantaged twice over—by poverty and by patriarchy. Poverty strips away the essentials: food security, access to healthcare, decent housing, and quality education. When a girl cannot afford sanitary products, she misses school, falls behind, and sometimes drops out altogether. Yet rather than responding with compassion and provision, schools often treat absenteeism as indiscipline and poor performance as laziness.
Instead of being supported, the girl is reprimanded, punished, or left behind, cementing the idea that her poverty is a personal failure. The cruelty is even more apparent in how girls are treated during menstruation. Many are shamed, ridiculed, or humiliated when they stain their uniforms or cannot afford pads. This stigma is deeply unjust because menstruation is a natural biological process, not a moral flaw, and lack of sanitary products is a sign of poverty, not irresponsibility. Similarly, girls from poor households are mocked for not wearing bras or proper innerwear, yet these are items their families simply cannot afford. Poverty should not expose a girl to humiliation, for it is neither a crime nor a choice.
The justice system too often mirrors this punitive culture. Petty offences such as loitering, hawking without licences, or being found in the “wrong” place at the “wrong” time disproportionately affect those who are poor. Girls who are simply out in public spaces, sometimes seeking work or running errands, risk being arrested or harassed. Once entangled with the law, their lack of money to pay bail or fines ensures that they face harsher consequences than wealthier peers. Poverty here becomes the multiplier of injustice, turning a minor infraction into a lifelong stigma or lost opportunity. It is not that the law was designed to punish poverty, but its enforcement does exactly that, and the most vulnerable—girls with little social protection—bear the brunt.
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Family and community expectations add yet another layer of penalty. In poor households where resources are stretched thin, the education of boys is often prioritised over that of girls. A girl may be pulled out of school to care for younger siblings, work in informal labour, or even be married off early in exchange for bride price. In every such case, her dreams are sacrificed at the altar of survival. Yet society still blames her later for being “uneducated,” “dependent,” or “irresponsible.” It fails to acknowledge that her trajectory was not freely chosen but forced upon her by poverty and a social order that devalues her potential. The punishment continues in adulthood as these women face limited access to decent work, healthcare, and political representation, keeping them in a generational cycle of deprivation.
When girls attempt to navigate their poverty through coping mechanisms, society often condemns them instead of addressing the underlying desperation. Transactional relationships, dropping out to find informal work, or engaging in risky ventures are not choices born of recklessness but survival strategies. Yet these girls are branded immoral, delinquent, or irresponsible. The stigma that follows them not only diminishes their dignity but closes doors that could offer redemption. Instead of being treated as victims of structural inequality, they are criminalised, judged, and punished further. In this way, poverty becomes a life sentence handed down by culture, institutions, and public opinion.
The tragedy of this situation is that punishing poor girls does nothing to resolve the poverty itself. Excluding them from education does not lift their families. Arresting them for petty offences does not create jobs. Stigmatising them for teenage pregnancy does not dismantle the social conditions that made them vulnerable. Punishment merely entrenches cycles of exclusion, ensuring that girls who start life with little have even less as they grow. What is needed instead is a radical shift in mindset: from punishment to protection, from blame to support, from exclusion to inclusion. Poverty should be recognised as a social condition requiring structural solutions, not an individual failure warranting discipline.
This means governments must design policies that cushion poor girls from the harshest impacts of deprivation. Provision of free and accessible sanitary products, scholarships for schoolgirls, legal aid services, and community social protection programs are not luxuries but necessities. Schools should become safe havens where poverty is not a reason for humiliation but a call to compassion. Instead of punishing absenteeism, teachers should investigate its causes and connect families to support. Instead of excluding pregnant teenagers, schools should offer pathways for their return. Laws criminalising petty offences that trap poor people in cycles of fines and imprisonment should be reformed to reflect justice and equality. The justice system must be reoriented to protect rather than prey on the powerless.
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Communities too must confront their complicity in perpetuating punishment. Parents must resist sacrificing their daughters’ futures to the pressures of poverty by valuing girls’ education equally with boys’. Religious and cultural leaders must speak against practices that marry off young girls under the guise of economic relief. Neighbours and peers must learn empathy rather than gossip, choosing to support struggling families rather than shame them. And society at large must abandon the corrosive myth that poverty is proof of laziness or poor choices. In truth, poverty is the outcome of systemic inequality, unemployment, underdevelopment, and unfair distribution of resources. It is a collective failure, not a personal crime.
To punish poor girls for their circumstances is to undermine the very fabric of justice, equality, and humanity. It robs them of their dignity, sabotages their potential, and perpetuates generational cycles of inequality. A just society does not criminalise need but responds to it with compassion and concrete support. It recognises that every girl, regardless of the weight of poverty on her shoulders, deserves the right to dream, to learn, to work, and to live with dignity. Poverty may strip away comforts and opportunities, but it must never strip away humanity. The call to action is simple yet profound: stop punishing girls for being poor, stop shaming them for menstruating, and stop mocking them for lacking bras or innerwear they cannot afford. Instead, commit to dismantling the structures that keep them trapped in poverty. Only then will we begin to build a society where justice is not a privilege of the wealthy but the right of every child, and where poverty is not treated as a crime but as a challenge to be overcome together.
By Ashford Kimani
Ashford teaches English and Literature in Gatundu North Sub-county and serves as Dean of Studies.
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