Women on the Front Lines of Hunger
This article is from the The New York Times, by Denise Brown. Views expressed are the author’s own.
The women usually stay on the fringes. Whether in Somalia or in Niger, they are hesitant, and blend into the background while the men talk. With their babies strapped to their backs and the elder children held by the hand, the women watch and listen, curious faces peering through the crowd. But more often than not, they don’t contribute.
Public space is men’s space, and I have learned that if I want to hear the full story about the challenges the women face in feeding their families, I need to ask for space to be made for them. As a woman working on the front lines of hunger, I have experienced this all across Africa.
Most recently, in the small commune of Hamdara in Myrriah, Niger, I met a group of men who had come out to talk about a project supported by the World Food Program. With an NGO partner, we are working with the community there to rehabilitate water sources so that crops can be irrigated and livestock watered — small steps intended to protect communities from the impact of drought and to build resilience and bolster food security.
“Something is missing,” I said when I arrived in the village.
“No, we are all here,” replied the men who had gathered around me.
“Ah, so you are the only village in Niger where there are only men?” I asked.
That prompted much laughter, and then slowly the women, who had been invisible until now, started to come forward, first one and then another until the men were hard to spot among all the mothers and children.
The discussion with the women almost always starts with laughter. A Western woman in their midst, asking lots of questions, makes for an interesting afternoon. And then there is the universal camaraderie among women. Somehow we find a way to understand one another through shared experiences: the emotional tug of a crying child; always having too much to do; the relentless demands of husbands. Whether one comes from Canada, Niger or Somalia, motherhood, at its core, is the same everywhere.