By Ing. Yayah A.B. Conteh.
In a typical African traditional and cultural setting, women have been viewed as creators and custodians of culture due to the immense role they play in transmitting and disseminating cultural values in society.
In many sub-Saharan African communities, today, women have also been entrusted with the main responsibility of transmitting cultural practices and group identity to succeeding generations. This singular act reinforces the conviction that many communities view women’s adherence to and promulgation of cultural norms as very much essential to cultural survival.
Scholars from different origins and backgrounds have asserted that the evolution and history of the African continent itself is reflected in the culture, evolution and history of African women.
Despite being viewed as transmitters of cultural practices and group identity, to succeeding generations, yet African women face various other issues related to gender inequality such as disproportionate levels of abject poverty and access to education, poor health and nutrition, limited workforce participation, denial to political power, gender-based violence, female genital cutting and early child marriage.
In many African countries, to date, custom and legal constraints still continue to limit women’s opportunity to the right to own property and the right to participate in the political and economic aspects of these countries.
The rank and social position of women, in Africa, varies across nations and regions. Striking examples can be contrasted, between, say, Rwanda and Morocco, in addressing women’s parliamentary roles in these countries.
A 2019 studies confirmed that Rwanda is the only country in Africa, and indeed the world at large, where women hold more than half the seats in Parliament, a respectable 51.9%, whereas Morocco only has one female minister in its cabinet.
A close look at women’s overall participation in agriculture, sub-Saharan Africa’s most vital economic sector, it can be seen that women contribute (60-80%) of labour in food production, both for household consumption and for sale.
Women’s responsibilities for managing the home and raising children caused them to be seen as heads of their households. Even the African kinship system provided room for women to be economically viable and independent.
History teaches that, amongst the Mende and Sherbro people in 19th Century Sierra Leone, women were selected as heads of towns and sub-regions, one of them being Madam Yoko.
Some of the laws enacted in disfavor of African women in general have impacted negatively on the girl-child education. Girls are often forced to drop out of school and start families. Before attaining the age of 18, more than 40% of girls in sub-Saharan Africa are thrown away on the laps of men for marriage purposes. Early marriage reinforces the belief that educating a girl-child, from the African point of view in comparison to her male counterpart, is a waste of resources.
The notion is rather erroneously conceived that parents would not receive any substantial economic benefits once a girl is married off into another family.
Some people, of both African and non-African descent alike, including well-enlightened parents of the present generation, see the practice of parents giving away their daughters in marriage in exchange for money as being synonymous to slavery of the highest order. For was slavery of old not, and still, not being recognized as a fundamental violation of human rights against the millions of Africans who were subjected to this inhuman and ungodly act?
Time without number, however, the argument has been advanced that African women can sometimes overstep or transcend certain forbidden frontiers in their attempt to uphold and maintain their cultural values and identities.
It is expected that, whether at home or abroad, these values and identities must be obeyed and respected. But this is not often the case, especially with some African women immigrants eking out a living or having settled down in a foreign country like the US which, up to around 2015, was home to about 2.5 million foreign-born Africans.
Unlike their Indian, Chinese or Latin American counterparts who are keen to preserve their cultural identities and ensure their children do not pollute their traditional values with foreign ideas, a significant proportion of African immigrants, with women usually in the lead, seem to pay a blind eye to this.
Stories abound predominantly, for example, of some cantankerous African women in the Diaspora (US & UK in particular) who are always at each other’s throat with their legitimate husbands on issues ranging from infidelity to addressing parental and household responsibilities. These day-to –day squabbles normally end up in police nets or court houses with the scales of justice most times swinging in favour of the women and at the detriment of their men folk.
This is mostly unheard of in the cases of their Indian, Chinese or Latin American counterparts. These set of people endeavor, at all cost, to maintain and uphold the cultural ties and identities that tend to bind them together no matter the gravity and seriousness of the issues tending to break them apart. Is this behavior on the part of the African women occasioned by exposure to an alien culture somehow different from theirs? I am sometimes left to wonder in a complete state of bewilderment!
In the African setting, the husband and wife form a co-operative, self-sufficient team. When a young couple marries, their elders instruct them in the co-operative nature of matrimony.
In sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, how far an African woman should go in asserting her rights is quite a major concern. Women can enjoy their rights within certain boundaries. Once a woman crosses these boundaries she would be considered to have transcended the frontiers of her rights to the point of becoming un-African.
It is somehow pitiful to note that some customary practices, that are perpetuated by culture and religion from time immemorial and that are considered harmful to women, are still being practiced by law in many sub-Saharan African countries where most women are not aware of their basic human rights. Consequently, therefore, the perpetuation of harmful traditional practices affects and corrodes the very well-being and existence of these women.
Like any other living law, customary laws are not supposed to be static. They are subject to change as they are dynamic aspects of the life of a country and its social fabric.
Modern times of existence dictate that cultures and traditions must be reviewed from time to time so that they do not violate the fundamental rights and freedoms of women.
And above all, what was considered a culture yesterday may prove otherwise tomorrow, for afterwards today’s innovation may turn up to be an archaic tradition in future years.
Ing. Yayah A.B. Conteh is the Director of the Mechanical Services Department (MSD) of the Sierra Leone Roads Authority (SLRA).
Tel. Nos: 076640364 / 077718805.
E-mail: contehyayahab2020@gmail.com.