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African Women are women who were born in, who live in and who are from the continent of Africa. Approximately 1,267 million people live in Africa and just over half of these are women. Life expectancy at birth for women is 60.5 years. The female median age is 20.5 years. The study of women in Africa emerged soon after African history in general became a respected academic subject. The African Independence movement of the 1960s spawned literature which forced Western academia to acknowledge the existence of pre colonial societies. In 1970 Esther Boserup’s book Women’s Role in Economic Development demonstrated the central role women had played over centuries of African history as economic producers. Women have been shown to be essential actors – historically, economically and socially in almost every region of Africa for millennia.

Historians have debated the role and status of women in precolonial and colonial society, explored how women have dealt with changing forms of oppression, investigated women’s roles in national struggles for independence (Shikola 1998: Pressey 1992) Gender inequalities persist today both in public and private arenas. There is discrimination against women in opportunities, health, education and pay. In some African countries, women are still not equal in law. Traditionally, women have fewer rights of inheritance.The continent has just two elected female presidents out of 54 countries. Only two women are listed in the top 100 CEOs of Africa. Societies in Africa are beginning to change but slowly.

Violence and Gender in Urban Areas

Violence against women in Africa is frequent, mostly undocumented and increasing. From April to December 2016, there were 37,630 sexual offences in South Africa and 30,069 rapes. The South African Medical Research Council found that 40% of men assault their partners daily and 3 women are killed by their partners every day. The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that in 2011 65% of women in South Africa had experienced spousal abuse. Alcohol has been cited as a determining cause, as male partners were always or sometimes drinking before the assault.

Female Genital Mutilation Prevalence

Country	FGM Prevalence in women and girls aged 15 to 49 years old (%)
Somalia	98
Sierra Leone	90
Egypt	87
Ethiopia	74
Liberia	50
Chad	44
Côte d’Ivoire	38
Nigeria	25
Kenya	21
Tanzania	15
Ghana	4
Graph showing Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) prevalence in 11 African Countries.

Lack of documentation of sexual assaults and inability to control them are serious issues – in Johannesburg, authorities were unable to reveal by how much incidents of violence against women had increased, although it unquestionably had. Authorities claim that as assaults take place in bedrooms, homes and secluded public areas it is impossible to police them. Another issue concerning domestic abuse is withdrawal of accusations due to fear of retaliation or a result of reconciliation with suspects. The Domestic Violence Act was put in place to prevent police from dropping charges against the suspect. However, lack of cooperation from victims is still an issue that stalls cases.

Women are just as or even more frequently at risk of violence in their own neighbourhoods and cities than men. This is especially when they leave the home to collect water and use communal sanitation and toilet facilities – women limit their use because of fear of violence on the journey and at destination. If women’s homes are flimsy and without security they are vulnerable to break-ins, theft and rape. Public transport has issues of personal safety and security, especially when connections are in isolated and poorly lit areas, or bus and train carriages are overcrowded and inadequately staffed. Women face verbal, sexual and physical harassment and assault, resulting in physical harm, psychological anxiety and a fear of the city. In Kenya women of all ages are affected by violence – while young women are prone to sexual abuse and gang rape, elderly and women who live independently are also at risk. Lone women and mothers are so insecure about living alone they choose to stay in abusive relationships.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is highly prevalent in 11 countries in Africa. In 2016 UNICEF found that Somalia had the highest incidence of FGM amongst women and girls aged 15-49, being 98%. Sierra Leone, Egypt, Ethiopia and Liberia also have FGM prevalence of at least 50%.

The Feminisation of Poverty in Africa

Poverty in Africa is increasingly affecting a larger proportion of women compared to men. The ‘feminisation of poverty’ is visible in the developing world where women make up more than half of the population but account for over 70% of that figure living in absolute poverty. The ‘feminisation of poverty’ does not refer solely to lack of income, it considers women’s lack of rights to education, exposure to violence, limited participation in household decisions and women’s unfair access to resources and opportunities. In sub-Saharan Africa, women are still often viewed as care givers due to the persistent patriarchal cultural bias that exists, resulting in women being regarded as ‘less valuable’ members of the community. The UNAIDS Gender Analysis links the subordinate status of women directly to violence against women and sexual assault which creates a cycle of poverty for women in Africa.

In South Africa there is no marked difference between men and women when literacy levels, enrolment in education and life expectancy are considered, however women’s average per capita income (US$7,047) is half of that of the male population (US$15,712). These disparities in South Africa reflect the economic inequalities and endemic violence that continue to marginalise the poorest women in society. The World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) impose policies on African countries that privatise the services needed most by women, which works to increase their poverty levels due to reliance on social services as care givers in the community. Some African societies however counter the theory of ‘feminisation of poverty’. In The Gambia, female headed households are not at a disadvantage compared to male headed households due to the cultural ties to their next of kin which enables flows of resources to continue.

Divisions of Labour

Tanzanian female entrepreneurs having an exhibition to sell and market their businesses.

Africa illustrates a difference in prosperity between men and women, this is mainly owed to the divisions of labour. It is argued that women are increasingly migrating to urban areas in search for better employment prospects, however, many women leave rural areas due to a lack of opportunity, they are also disadvantaged as they usually do not inherit any land in rural areas. Nonetheless, even in urban areas men are involved in income-generating “productive” work while women are involved in unpaid “reproductive” work.

The nature of work in Arica for women means that any paid labour that they are involved in tends to be employment in export-processing plants, where employers prefer female labourers since they work for lower wages, and they can also be intimidated more easily, resulting in more productive work. In Africa there are 47 Export Processing Zones (EPZs), Kenya contains 14 of them; women account for approximately 90% of all workers. Not only are working conditions challenging, but limited workers’ rights for women also proves to be problematic. In Nairobi, Kenya, an orange style export processing zone was shut down, leaving 500 workers unemployed. A lack of workers’ rights meant that the firm was able to shut down before paying countless women the salary that they were owed.

Women in Africa are also limited to what they can do in the informal economy due to a lack of skills, experience and an inability to access capital start-ups. Also female slum dwellers residing in the city outskirts tend to not have any access to transport, therefore cannot reach a wider market. This can lead to little success in any potential business ideas, leading to high workforce dropouts among women. Despite this, the informal economy in Nairobi, Lagos and Accra are dominated by women, comprising of trades in food and clothes. Issues still lie in women not having sufficient access to credit.

Problems of tackling issues of accessing credit is being dealt with, for instance, credit is being offered to females looking to start or expand their business through the Development Bank of Ethiopia, supported by the World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries. From January 2014 to September 2015, around 768 million Birr ($38 million) was disbursed to 3,227 women, the repayment rate was 99.4%.

Gender Disparities : Women's Power and Rights

Women’s rights in Africa are a much discussed topic and the gender inequality between men and women is seen as a significant driver of poverty and underdevelopment by the United Nations (UN), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. This is reflected in the progression and the recent redefinition of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Redefinitions include MDG Nº3 : Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women into Sustainable Development Goal SDG Nº5 : Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls in 2015.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest gender parity rates in both Primary and Secondary education, with the number of boys far exceeding the number of girls in education. However significant gains have been made in countries such as Sierra Leone, Senegal, Chad and Burkina Faso - some of the most unequal countries in the continent. Despite these significant improvement, gender disparities in Higher Education are still a huge problem globally - and it is in this category that sub-Saharan Africa has made the most significant gains.

The issues that exist purely in education make the task of achieving gender equality globally very challenging, but more so in sub-Saharan Africa due to the fact that developed nations, and more widely, the world, understand the current developmental state of countries through their achievement or failure in line with the UN’s MDG review in 2015. It has been suggested that the difficulty of completing MDG Nº2 : Achieve Universal Primary Education, in many African countries, meant that it was also difficult to complete MDG Nº3, even partially - whilst many other countries in South East Asia managed to use their completion of MDG Nº2 to ‘partially complete’ MDG Nº3 - as they ‘achieved’ gender equality in education.

There are several factors hampering Women’s right to equality, and by extension these also hampered many African countries in their ability to achieve the MDGs, and continues to hamper them when trying to achieve the new SDGs. Women in many African countries experience more limitations on their lives and less freedom than men, thus reducing the amount of power they have and the importance of women’s voices and their right to self-determination. Whilst factors such as the lack of economic freedom enjoyed by women could be seen as a the primary contributor to discrimination, the issues are more complex and affected by several other factors such as :

• Access to education and credit
• Cultural values
• Household duties
• Labour market conditions
• Corrupted, poor, or non-existent political system (countries without universal suffrage, or democratic systems) / militant regimes
• Pre-existing religious systems (such as Islam, or Catholicism), which can limit women’s freedom (by affecting cultural values, or by acting as the foundation for regressive laws)

Conclusion

To summarise, it is evident that women in Africa are marginalised in every aspect of life. Looking at the division of labour, women face several problems. For example, many women are exploited for the work they do by being underpaid and made to work long hours. Moreover, many women face hardship due to lack of opportunists in the formal and informal economy. Nonetheless, women working can also be seen as empowering. Employment allows women to earn and become more independent.

The feminisation of poverty is evident in the developing world. Women are most notably affected more than men, this is highlighted by 70% percent of women living in absolute poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. This further coincides with a lack of rights that women have to attain education and resources. Historically, women have been viewed as ‘less valuable’ around the world, but this stigma remains in sub-Saharan Africa in the present day. This is exemplified by the disparities in the level of income earned by men when compared to women in South Africa, the latter earning less than half the amount of men.

The gender disparity can be seen to stem from an early age, examples such as the failure of many sub-Saharan countries achieving SDG Nº5, show how boys consistently outnumber girls in education. Therefore, this has long-term consequences which make women more vulnerable in the long run. Although some African countries are improving there is a long way to go.

Looking at the social aspect, women face many challenges. For example, most women have undergone some form of sexual assault. This is highlighted by the growing number of rape cases that are steadily increasing. Many women are not safe within their neighbourhoods or homes as they become victims of sexual assault. Alcohol is deemed as a catalyst for the increased frequency of these cases.