Impacto Social

Since 1915, there have been many women’s groups. They have focused on ‘traditional’37 _social

issues related to the advancement of women and girls. Education, in particular, served as their first solidarity issue. It became a central social issue because it was (and still is) believed that women should not be educated. Instead, her role, let alone her place in society, is confined to the house, tending to household chores, working on the farm, and raising her children.

In 1915, the first women’s organization called, the Young Women’s Christian Association

(YWCA)38_{, a faith-based organization (FBO) took up the issue of educating women and girls. Sarah}39_{, a}

senior member of the WF said, “There has always been a women’s movement in Sierra Leone. But they are more into traditional things like education, literacy and health for women and girls… Back in the days of the YWCA women came together to have women and girls educated” (interview 8/1/2018).

Of the many activities the YWCA was involved in was mainstreaming education. It built pre- primary schools for girls up-country (‘rural areas’) as well as vocational training centers. Its success inspired the formation of other FBOs and service delivery organizations to provide education and other services for women and girls nationwide. Some of the organizations that emerged since the founding of

the YWCA were the Girl Guides Association Sierra Leone (GGSL) 40_{United Methodist Women’s}

Church Association (UMWCA) (1968) and the Sierra Leone Association of University Women (SLAUW) (1976).

Overtime, education became a means and an end to empower women so that they could be less dependent on their male counterparts. Jasmin, one of the Founders of SLAUW and the WF commented, “We wanted to make sure that many […] women got an education and became generally empowered, and not too dependent on others, including men as in our tradition” (interview 12/9/2017).

Although more women are educated today, there is still a cultural stigma about educating women and girls. I would like to touch upon it in detail from my three months of fieldwork with WF members in the next subsection (see Photograph 2).

5.2.2.1 Education

Based on my interviews, it is a common belief in Sierra Leone that females should not be educated. This belief is especially and deeply entrenched in the rural areas, particularly in the Northern and Eastern parts of the country, which account for over four million, or over half of the population’s total seven million (Statistics Sierra Leone, 2015; Commonwealth of Learning, 2015). In these areas, women are traditionally bound to the household, occupied with domestic chores such as cooking, subsistence farming, fetching water, raising children, and a variety of other functions. Miatta, a 50/50

Group41 _{representative said, “Traditionally, the dynamic is that you do not educate women, especially}

38 _{The YWCA is an offshoot of the Young Men’s Christian Association, an ecumenical Christian movement}

organization based in Geneva, Switzerland but founded in England in 1844 by missionaries to provide programs, education and services to empower young men (YMCA, 2018).

39 _{The women’s movement is fragmented and contentious. Therefore, I feel an obligation to protect the privacy of}

my participants and use pseudonyms in reporting their observations.

40 _{It became a full member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 1963.}

women from the North because women should be looking after their children and doing house chores” (interview 15/10/2017).

It is widely agreed that educating a woman is equated to giving her a voice. In the eyes of traditionalists, this is a problem, or possibly the anthesis of what a woman should be. Saffiatu, a Mano

River Women’s Peace Network42 _{representative said, “In the North, they believe women don’t deserve}

education and that women should be silenced. She will become too loud if she is educated” (interview 3/10/2017). Even if a woman becomes educated, her duties will still be confined to the home because the expectation is for her to get married and move away to the husband’s household where she will become his property and subjected to his will. Abdul, a 50/50 Group representative said, “women are baby makers. Their role is confined in the kitchen. Traditionally, men do not see a benefit in educating women because… at the end she will definitely get married and be subjected to the will of the husband” (interview 23/8/2017).

Expanding women’s education has been an important goal of the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL). It has made special efforts to send girl children to school in the Northern and Eastern provinces. It has created new policies to meet international goal of Education for All (EFA) (Nishimuko, 2007). The GoSL has provided free primary education and school materials, and created public awareness campaigns, sensitizing women to enroll in schools. As a result, there have been rapid increases overall in primary education enrollment.

However, statistically women and girls still lag behind their male counterparts. While 96 percent of rural children (ages 6-11 years) are enrolled in primary school, with girls outnumbering boys in enrolment by 3.2 percent, this number significantly decreases as girls get older (Statistics Sierra Leone,

42 _{MARWOPNET is an NGO based in Sierra Leone, comprised of members from Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea}

and Cote D’Ivoire. It formed in 2000 as a way to promote peace and development, especially in the Mano River region (Issat, 2018).

Photograph 7: The Women's Forum presenting to school girls.

2015; Commonwealth of Learning, 2015). For instance, according to Statistics Sierra Leone (2015), the national Senior Secondary School (SSS) enrolment was 68.3 % of which urban enrollment was below fifty percent; girls enrollment was 37.6 percent compared to boys at 64.2 percent. The difference in rates is due to high dropouts of adolescent girls. Also, female adult literacy43 _{was 33.65% compared to}

55.53% in male adults. Factors contributing to female disadvantage are poverty, low access to educational resources and paternalistic culture (Statistics Sierra Leone, 2015; Pessima et al., 2009).

Since the establishment of the YWCA in 1915, several SMOs with a focus on women’s social issues have come together to create an umbrella body where women could speak unilaterally on their social grievances. In discussing why these various groups formed, Jasmin noted, “The idea was growing that with women in these other organizations, such as SLAUW, the YWCA, we could come together. Then we will make our presence felt better and speak with one voice on women’s concerns and issues” (interview 12/9/2017). Of the many women’s-focused SMOs that formed were the Women’s Movement Sierra Leone (WMSL) (1966), Women Association for National Development (WAND) (1987), the National Organization for Women Sierra Leone (NOW) (1988) and the Women’s Forum (WF) (1995). Each organization’s CI was reconstituted to suit the environment that women were exposed to. The WF, which pertains to my research, is one such example. I explain women’s impetus to form it in the next section.