“A Stranger in her Father's House, a Stranger in her Husband's”

Most days in the office, I read Community Action Plans: documents generated by PARED and other field organizations that summarize the assets, needs, history, problems and requested solutions of impoverished communities. Over and over, the root causes of poverty manifest in the requests from these people: requests for KVIP latrines to improve sanitation, a borehole to improve water access and cleanliness, bullocks and donkeys to help plough their maize, millet and cassava fields, water pumps for gardening in the dry season. PARED is involved with over a dozen of these communities—and the more I read, the more I see social customs, attitudes and traditions complicating the already incredibly complex problem of village poverty in one important regard: an often overlooked and difficult to describe root cause of poverty, gender inequality.

Over and over, I read the descriptions of the Land Tenure Systems of these communities. Over and over, I read that women are traditionally barred from owning land, and that this causes them reduced yields when they farm on the least fertile bits of their husband's, the only plots available to them. Over and over I read the sentence “In our community, women and land are both owned by our men, who take care of their own”. Over and over, I read “In our tradition, property cannot own property”. And over and over, I read reports stating that village women sustain their families for sometimes up to 11 months after their husbands' crops run out, scraping out of their own pockets for staple food after paying school fees, health bills, and for food ingredients to stave off malnutrition. After, of course, they have brought water, cared for children, cooked for an army, cleaned a compound of clothes, floors, waste and dishes, farmed their husband's land, fed the animals, farmed their own, and waited on the whim of their husbands when he returns.

I see the attitude reflected in many of the CAPs: “A woman is a stranger in her father's house, and a stranger in her husband's”. Many of the people I speak to about this, villagers and development workers alike, say the same things. Since women are bound by duty to be married to another family, they cannot inherit land from their own. Since women are bound to be married and sent away, educating them is not a smart investment for a family with sons. Since new wives are from another family, another home, and sometimes another tribe, they are not entitled to any of the husband's family's property or wealth. Since new wives can leave their husbands, allowing them to own any part of their husband's inheritance can result in the lands of your ancestors being owned by aliens. And since their daughters are doomed to the same fate, the cycle continues.

Attitudes are changing. The CAP development process also serves as a sensitization for communities involved, asking them to inspect and evaluate their traditions, practices and habits and choose whether or not they contribute to their betterment as a village. Many communities look at the work of their women, see how strongly they support the community despite the overwhelming pressures and odds, and decide that a change in their favour is necessary. This shift is evident in the number of girls being sent to schools, the number of women voted onto Internal Community Project facilitation teams that run development initiatives from the ground, and the number of voices raising within the communities to speak about the inequality of women—from women and men alike. Nevertheless, there is still far to go. My Gender Officer counterpart, the entire PARED team, and myself and the rest of EWB, have a lot of road in front of us until we reach an equitable and beneficial arrangement for women.

And like them, we have a lot of water to carry.