Frazer Potani, AfricaNews reporter in Lilongwe, Malawi
It happened on a Friday in January this year. While others in their low pitch voices at her funeral sympathized with her, others scorned her as her coffin was slowly being lowered in the seven feet grave in the slum of Mgona in Lilongwe, Malawi. "Surely had her uncle and aunt given the late girl a second chance in their mansion she would have possibly lived," said James Kankhwende, a retired locomotive driver in his late 60s.
“I don’t agree with you. This girl asked for her early death herself through contracting HIV and AIDS willingly. If she had love for her own life she would have not turned her own body into a cash machine through commercial sex work,” charged Willard Thakolambuzi a 70-year- old former school teacher as the grave diggers struggled to shove the heavy water soaked soil in the water logged trench.
Almost every woman present at the sorrowful event on the other hand sympathized with the three-year-old girl child who was left behind by the deceased.
“Poor child her future is in the dark. If her late teenage mother was kicked out of her uncle and aunt’s mansion will they take her daughter?” said Rose Masuku, 56, the deceased’s neighbour.
The deceased’s close friend, Martha, on the other hand said, Tina for that was the name of her colleague, would have probably lived if she had been economically empowered.
“Tina used to tell me that she did not enjoy to engage in commercial sex work to earn her bread and butter. She even said she had learnt a big lesson from the mistake of falling pregnant while at school.My friend even said if she had a chance to get a loan from eslewhere she was to start a small business and raise money to go back to school to create a good future for herself and her child,” said Martha while wiping tears with the back of her right hand.
Youth Fund
To rescue the youth from rampant problems due to poverty and unemployment Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika about a year ago launched the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) in Lilongwe.
The launch ignited great excitement among the youth because they had waited for so long with anxiety to access loans to create self employment through venturing into small scale businesses.
“We don’t take government’s decision to establish the fund for granted as many youths are not economically empowered in the country due to among other things, high unemployment rate,” said National Youth Council (NYC) chairperson Thembi Thadzi on behalf of Malawian youths.
She further said since Mutharika announced that once re-elected into government during the May 19, 2009 general elections campaign, he would establish the YEDF, the youth spent sleepless nights eagerly waiting to benefit from it.
Mutharika launched YEDF after the May 2004 general elections also launching another revolving fund, the Malawi Rural Development Fund (MARDEF) to enable people in the country access loans for small scale businesses to fight poverty.
Some months ago, MARDEF (which is administering YEDF) brought a sigh of relief to the youth in Malawi through releasing a list of groups in Malawi’s print media approved to receive loans for starting businesses.
MARDEF and YEDF are vital because many Malawians including the youth are not employed hence would help them create self employment.
Job creation
Malawi’s Labour Minister Yunus Mussa said that Malawi’s job market is small because just 500,000 people (or about 4 per 100 in the 13 million plus population) are employed.
“Government is still doing all it can to create jobs in the country,” he said.
Meanwhile, a research on every crisis including unemployment and poverty in southern Africa like in most sub-Sahara Africa societies reveals that it affects more women than men at all levels.
Therefore, more women including young ladies like Martha and Tina than men feel more pinches of unemployment, poverty and economic hardships necessitating the need for women to be given a special attention to overcome such problems.
A study by the UNDP in Malawi for instance reveals that generally poverty increases individuals’ susceptibility to HIV infection, particularly in women and young girls.
“According to existing evidence, the social economic status of women in Malawi is typically lower than that of men, which places them at greater risk of infection. Differential incomes, status in social standing may determine livelihood choices and ultimately sexual networks,” reads the study in part.
It adds that poverty in Malawi frequently leads women and girls to engage in transactional sex as source of income and subjects them to sexual trafficking and exploitation.
“A number of studies in Malawi have found that young girls from poorer families marry at an early age and many women engage in transactional sex to escape poverty. Because women often depend on men for their livelihoods, they may find it difficult to negotiate safer sex or abandon risky relationships altogether. These women are exposed to greater risk of infections,” says the study.
Struggling for loan
During the launch of YEDF President Bingu wa Mutharika admitted that women struggle to access to loans from financial institutions than men in Malawi.
“The financial institutions ask husbands’ guarantee to allow women get loans,” he said.
Concurring with Mutharika, at a business women meeting in Lilongwe Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s Women Director Patricia Kaliati also acknowledged that women in Malawi were failing to start or expand businesses because of lack of access to loans from banks.
“Our appeal to banks in the country is to soften their lending conditions to enable women access loans for businesses to be economically empowered than just relying on men on everything,” she said.
Christine Chilangwa Ng’ambi a member of the Non-Governmental-Organization (NGO) Coordinating Committee in Zambia participated in the 1992 International NGO Forum on World Bank and IMF Adjustment Lending.
She also disclosed in her study that only few women in southern Africa have made serious economic investment because it is not easy for them to access to financial resources than men.
“In fact the few women who have ventured in economic investments have done so through the influential positions of their spouses or male relatives, in government or private enterprise,” said Ng’ambi.
She further explained that men have provided collateral in the form of a guarantee to lending institutions for such women investors.
Investment funds
“In some cases women have also managed to raise investment funds through their positions of influence, coupled with perseverance, determination and aggressiveness,” said Ng’ambi adding, “Getting access to finance has not been easy for women.”
She also revealed that both experience and research has shown that women have very limited access to land, capital, gainful employment and positions of decision making.
“The factors that have contributed to women’s limited access to finance are varied and include: lack of collateral-which is the major contribution factor; administrative discriminatory practices-where financial institutions demand to have a consent from the spouse or male relative for a woman to borrow, women’s lack of knowledge and information on the availability of facilities in the various financial institutions,” explained Ng’ambi.
She also attributed women’s failure to access loans for investment to their low incomes and failure to maintain active records of their accounts often also required by financial institutions.
“Women are drawn to the informal sector often because they have no access to finance or other tools of production. The few women who have excelled as entrepreneurs have even invested in areas that one would categorize as ‘feminine’ such as manufacturing of dresses and hand bags,” said Ng’ambi.
Diane Elson, a teacher in Development Economics in the Economic Department, University of Manchester, United Kingdom (UK) also did her own study which backs Ng’ambi’s claims.
Elson’s research revealed that women are economically less empowered than men because most economic issues across the globe are decided, at both technical and popular levels, in ways that pay no explicit attention to gender relations and how these relations subordinate women.
Economic policy
“Most government economic policy is formulated and implemented in ways that appear to be gender neutral, but on closer examination turn out to be marked by male,” said Elson.
She further explained that most economic decisions are structured by gender relations in overt and subtle ways, but reducing gender inequality is never dominant objective.
Elson however, admitted that it is true that pressure from women’s organizations and the research and advocacy of women social scientists have brought about some increase in attention to women’s issues in the institutions which analyze economic issues and formulate economic policy.
“But most economic issues are not thought of as women’s issues; and women’s issues in the economic sphere are narrowly construed in terms of discrimination against women in public sector agencies and private sector firms in distribution of employment opportunities, and access to land, credit, and technology,” she said.
Elson further expounded that women’s unequal access to resources controlled by officials and business managers is an important topic, and the progress made in exposing the problems women face and designing improved access systems was welcome to influence change.
“But women’s unequal access to resources still remains an issue at the bottom of the agendas of most organizations with economic power. One reason for this is a lack of imagination on the part of economists, officials, and business managers. They do not see how most of what they consider to be economic issues have any connection with gender equality,” said Elson.
The researcher further said that at the same time women’s organizations and women social scientists also often lack a language with some points of connection with the concepts of economics.
“Of course, this is not the only reason: an understanding of inequality does not necessarily lead to any practical steps to reduce inequality. However, without a way of explaining the sense in which all economic issues are women’s issues, it is that much harder for women’s organizations to intervene,” explained Elson.
It happened on a Friday in January this year. While others in their low pitch voices at her funeral sympathized with her, others scorned her as her coffin was slowly being lowered in the seven feet grave in the slum of Mgona in Lilongwe, Malawi. "Surely had her uncle and aunt given the late girl a second chance in their mansion she would have possibly lived," said James Kankhwende, a retired locomotive driver in his late 60s.
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