SOMALIA: Women take on men's jobs to feed their families

Photo: Y.O/IRIN Radio

More and more women are going to the market everyday to look for work

NAIROBI, 15 October 2009 (IRIN) - Khadijo Mahamud, a mother of five, goes to Bakara market every day to look for work, despite the constant shelling. Her youngest child is 10 months old but Mahamud knows she has no choice but to leave him with her 10-year-old and venture out to find food for the family.

“I have to leave the children and try and find something for them to eat; I will do almost any job," she told IRIN on 14 October. "Some days I get to wash clothes, but other days I work as a porter or clean stores.”

On a good day, Mahamud makes 50,000 Somali shillings (US$1.50). “There are days I don’t make even that much.”

Like Mahamud, a growing number of women in Mogadishu has been pushed into tasks that were traditionally considered men's work, such as serving as porters and pushing handcarts in the market.

Mahamud said most women risked a lot coming to Bakara market but had no alternative. She said she had lost many friends in the market, killed by shells.

“You will be carrying something for a client and then the shelling starts and you have nowhere to run; many friends died trying to earn some money for their children,” Mahamud added.

Sharifo Adow, head of the Coalition of Grassroots Women's Organizations (COGWO), said more and more women were carrying heavy loads in Bakara - the largest open-air market in the country - and one of the most dangerous places in the Mogadishu, with regular shelling by various fighting groups.

“In the past, we were used to seeing women selling tea or drinks in the market but now you see more and more women porters or pushing handcarts,” she said.

Adow said most of the women had lost their husbands and had no one else to help them, "so they do whatever is necessary to provide for their children. They are so desperate they will do anything to be able to get food to the children.

“It is not only women who lost their husbands who work," she said. "There are many whose husbands are alive but are the family's breadwinners.”

She said many of the men would not do some of the things the women did to feed their children.

“These [women] are the poorest of the poor who could not even afford to get out of the city and go to the IDP camps,” Adow said. “They live a hand-to-mouth existence and cannot even afford to get sick for one day.”

The Bakara market has suffered many casualties in fighting between government forces and two Islamist insurgent groups trying to topple the government.

Nuurto Ali, a mother of four, also does labourer’s work in the market. She lost her husband five years ago when a shell landed on him. “I have been working here ever since.”

Ali said the only help she gets is from her eldest son, Ali, 14, who works as shoeshiner in the streets of Mogadishu.

“Every morning, even when there is fighting going on, I am here at dawn, so I can get the early work,” Ali said.

Adow said aid agencies should think about setting up income-generating activities to help these women and their families.

“These are people that have fallen into a black hole; they are not where the aid agencies are and no one else is helping them,” Adow said.

ah/mw