COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 13 Julia Klayman Explores Women’s Resilience in Uganda HAYLEY FRERICHS A summer of service sparked a multi-year study on gender, survival, and public health in Bududa other people to know that they were engaging in transactional sex.” HIV/AIDS, on the other hand, isn’t visible like pregnancy. “When you have HIV, it's something that other people don't know about. So they're able to hide it, whether they're taking antiretrovirals or not.” Klayman’s research experience at Lehigh has been invaluable and she’s working on publishing two articles. “Working hand in hand with Dr. [Kelly] Austin and Dr. [Mark] Noble not only taught me how to engage in ethnographic research and participatory research, but how to navigate different community norms and different social and cultural climates, which is an experience I don't think I would have otherwise if it weren't for Lehigh.” Support from the university enabled her to conduct fieldwork in Bududa and pursue her passion for social justice and global health. “Because of this experience, it really showed me the impact of law on different kinds of communities,” Klayman says, who will be attending law school next year. “It really shaped my career and my whole life.” ● After exploring the region and getting to know the community, she observed a stark gender disparity which inspired her to investigate how landslides affect women and the coping mechanisms they employ. “After landslides occur, people are going hungry, people don't have shelter, people don't have access to any sort of healthcare, and they're turning to transactional sex to be able to make money in order to get those basic necessities,” she explains. Motorcycle taxi drivers, known throughout east Africa as boda bodas, have an advantage in such a large, hilly community. As a result, they have the means to engage in transactional sex at incredibly high rates. “They're able to convince these young girls who have incredibly long commutes to school [to engage in transactional sex]. A girl could be walking from the top of the hill two hours down to school and then two hours back home when it's dark outside,” Klayman says. Despite HIV posing greater longterm health risks, the immediate concerns about pregnancy are perceived as a greater threat. “Women feared pregnancy because it was something that was visible,” Klayman says. Women who become pregnant might resort to dangerous abortions or be forced to drop out of school. Abortion is illegal in Uganda so some women turn to self-administered methods, like herbal abortifacients, which can lead to death. Social consequences fuel the fear of pregnancy for men in the community too. “The men didn't want the commitment of having a pregnancy, but also they didn't want When Julia Klayman ’25 first volunteered with the Pathways to Development Initiative, the local NGO in Bududa, Uganda, she never expected to spend her subsequent summers conducting research on transactional sex. The region’s rural landscape and frequent natural disasters disproportionately impact women, especially young women, who often engage in transactional sex to secure basic necessities, services like taxi rides, or even luxury goods. A global studies and political science double major, Klayman has always been interested in volunteering and working with women and children. Girl students with their books and bicycle drivers walk up a hill as boda bodas approach in Uganda. CHRISTINE KRESCHOLLEK, 1001SLIDE / ISTOCK Julia Klayman
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