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Women’s Rights: The key to reducing poverty
Women’s rights are essential to reduce poverty. Women have a major role in natural
resource management and do anywhere between 60% to 80% of farming but they have no rights to land. As a result they often get as little as 10% of the income derived from these activities and all that goes to provide for the family. Women are often denied access to education. In Tanzania only 3% of girls are enrolled in secondary school yet children of educated mothers are twice as likely to survive to their fifth birthday. Women often suffer from domestic violence and are forced into marriage. If a women is widowed she must then move in with her husbands’ brother and with no freedom to own her own productive land or generate income she becomes further marginalised and dependent on her male counterparts.
Change at cultural and Community level
Improving women’s rights requires change at a cultural and community level first to challenge discriminatory cultural policies and practices because this is where their rights and roles are determined.
Women in Tanzania and Ghana have identified the following issues:
- reducing female genital mutilation (FGM) and domestic violence.
- women’s access to fertile land and natural resources and inheritance rights.
- access to credit and establishing micro-enterprises.
Tanzania
In Tanzania African Initiatives work with the Maasai community. In this community women suffer from a subordinate position and discriminated rights. They have no right to own property or cattle and regardless of their disproportionate workload have little access to the resources they produce. They also have no right to chose their husbands and are often married by the age of twelve or thirteen. Few will be allowed to continue attending school after they are married and many are illiterate.
Maanda Ngoitiko is an inspired and dedicated community leader who, unhappy with the lack of commitment by male dominated pastoralist NGO, started mobilising and supporting Maasai women in claiming their rights while addressing their basic livelihood needs. She founded the Pastoral Women's Council (PWC) which to this day remains the only women-led pastoralist NGO in Tanzania.
Northern Ghana
Northern Ghana is often defined by its climate - hot and dry with only 6 weeks of unpredictable rain. The region scores lowly on all indicators of poverty; child mortality, girls in school, malnutrition, access to clean water, income, conflicts and political representation. Primarily a rural, subsistence farmer based economy, human and natural resources have to be harnessed if communities are to live in such hostile environments.
The position of women makes them particularly vulnerable as they have restricted access to land and natural resources, power and decision making, capital, access to basic services (education, health legal) and physical security. Programmes supporting farmers are usually dominated by men’s issues and needs ignoring the evidence that women provide 80% of farm labour.
Having implemented a very successful women’s credit and income generating project African Initiatives started an innovative pilot project to reduce Female Genital Mutilation. Based around the commitment of one young woman, Rebecca Seidhu, the project addressed the issue at a community and cultural level working though social structures such as traditional birth attendants, women’s income generating activities and spaces where women meet. As a result FGM in the
Binduri community reduced from 90% to around 10%.
This African Initiatives Briefing Paper is based in research and analysis in the UK and Africa and on our experiences and the experiences of our partners, colleagues and friends working in Ghana and Tanzania.
For more information on this briefing or any of other work, please contact:
African Initiatives
T: 01179 150001
E: info@african-initiatives.org.uk