Good girls and boys: findings from a cross-sectional survey on adolescent rights, relationships, and sexuality in an urban informal settlement in India

Around 20% of India’s population are adolescents aged 10–19 years. Our objective was to strengthen program interventions on gender equity, health, and participation by gauging adolescents’ levels of understanding and opinions. In a cross-sectional survey, we interviewed 2005 adolescents on their opinions on rights, friendship and sex, sexual refusal and coercion, and communication with family, using a two-stage probability proportional to size sample. Opinions on gender allocations were generally equitable, although females supported clothing proscriptions. Premarital sex, multiple partners, masturbation and non-heterosexual partnerships were frowned upon. Few respondents said that they felt pressure to be sexually active, 79% said that sexual coercion was a form of violence, but 14% of older adolescents said that it would be unreasonable to refuse sex. Our interviews described young people negotiating the terrain between perceived normative expectations and contemporary aspirations, showing limited manoeuvring within assumed gender roles in which family control was prominent.