Abdoulie G Dibba
This Column is meant to monitor and report on issues that concern the
people of the rural area in terms of how they are facilitating or
hindering their development.
As we commemorate Rural Women Day today, 15 October 2015, the Life of
the Rural People Column would like to highlight the situation of theRural Women in terms of poverty, drudgery in the absent of labour
saving device, their lack of control and ownership of land, which is
key to any agricultural activities amongst others.
It has been stated in previous editions of the Life of the Rural
People Column that women risk their health in order to put bread on
the table and that they work under the burning sun without sunscreen
working on the farm, garden, processing food, fetching water or doing
laundry.
With no employment opportunities in the Rural Gambia other than the
farm, poverty is taking a dramatic toll as women lack control and
ownership of the key factor of agricultural production which is land.
Due to lack of land, rural women produce little groundnut
To give meaning to the commemoration of rural women day, the speeches
must centre on how the drudgery of the rural women can be eradicated,
their poverty reduced, their demand for inclusion in the District
Tribunal, their demand for land control and ownership captured. This
column would wait and see.
