Niumi Baba: The Gambia
Niumi sees discrimination between men and women only too clearly in her country. In a village where most men have large tracts of land, Niumi has to share her small rice field with two other women. The land that they are sharing, even if the harvests are good, will barely feed their families for a month. Men also have first use of farm implements, such as tractors, meaning that women plant late, leading to poor harvests. Niumi says that as farmers, women deserve the same access to resources as men, and this is why she attended the HungerFREE Women rally in the nearby town of Brikama Ba. “From Pakali to Fatato, if there are 5,000 women, only 2,000 of them have access to land. African women want to farm to drive hunger away but we don’t have the manpower, we don’t have the resources and implements. We cannot rely on axe and a hoe to bring progress.”
Women in The The Gambia explain the obstacles they face in feeding themselves and their families and Aja Isatou Fayinkey offers some solutions.
On rural Woman's day, 17th October 2008, ActionAid The Gambia launched the HungerFREE Women cross-country caravan.We met with women farmers, chiefs, governors and local religious leaders to address the food crisis and the lack of women’s ownership of land.
