Project Problem

Thousands of women across families and communities in Sierra Leone suffer from cultural and traditional practices that disempower them and limit their social, political and economic progress to live dignified lives. Even though laws and polices exist to protect women against all forms of violence and discrimination, 45% of them nationwide experience lifetime physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence. About 29% of women who experience violence in the last 12 months are from physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence and those who experience female genital mutilation account 90% across the women population in the country.

Cultural and traditional practices over the years have also limited women’s participation in agriculture especially cash crops such as cocoa, coffee and oil palm production, which are the cash earning crops for the economy. Agriculture is the backbone to Sierra Leone’s economic development, providing employment, food, and, sustaining the livelihoods for the majority of its citizens including women. About 70% of women are employed in agriculture and women provide 75% of the labour along the food value chain, from production, processing to marketing.

Despite their contribution to agriculture and other sectors of the economy, documented traditional practices and gender stereotypes place a heavy work burden on women who contribute to the family farm, assist their husbands in cash crop production, engage in subsistence farming, and in small scale animal production (poultry and small ruminant).

In addition to farm activities, women are responsible for most domestic and reproductive chores such as cooking, fetching water and fuel wood, clean and launder clothes, care of the sick, the elderly and children. Considering the lack of rural infrastructures (roads, less than 50% rural households have access to clean water (GOSL 2013 and MICS 2010), lack of access to energy etc..) and services (child care etc.), such activities take much time and limit women ability to perform their farming and other income generating activities.

Gender inequality is prevalent in access to and control over land, financial services, productive resources, and extension or market services and prevent women to achieve their whole potential. Women in agriculture and rural areas have less access than men to productive resources. If women are legally entitled to similar access to land, custom laws often prevail in rural areas. Sierra Leone as a country practices patrilineal inheritance, so land is generally passed down from father to son. Also, women face the risk of losing control over the land when their husband dies or if they divorce.

Women have less access to extension services and technologies and finances. Gender difference is observed in literacy level with 59% and 76% registered for females and males respectively in 2015 (HDR, 2016). Extension systems tend to promote innovations that benefit farmers with more assets and higher level of education. They mainly target established farmers, predominantly men, while poor women who desperately need the knowledge tend to be neglected. In addition to women’s limited access to technology (tractors, power tillers and vehicle hire, for instance) for agriculture, they are often excluded from training programmes. This discrimination is justified and normalized by the gender stereotypes and traditional perceptions held by women, which teach them that they do not have the physical capability to undertake hard work or operate machines. Women also have very little or no access to credit and other financial services due to limited financial literacy, poor knowledge of administrative procedures, transportation difficulties and cultural barriers.

This action is proposed to be implemented for 6 months in 2019 to contribute in addressing some of the challenges women face by promoting income generation for cash crop farmers through gender transformative practices, self-initiatives, and business development.