Who bears the brunt of GBV in the agri-food system?

It is irrefutable that both men and women experience all forms of gender-based violence (economically, socially, politically, religiously and psychologically) with worrying devastating effects that are evident both physically and emotionally. Nevertheless, the majority of victims of gender-based violence are women. Most frequently, gender-based violence involves power imbalances, with men being the perpetrators and women being the victims. But again, women experience gender-based violence multi-dimensionally.

Women along the agri-food value chain in Uganda are more susceptible to gender-based violence compared to the rest. Their situation can be best described as a double burden of gender-based violence suffered as wives at home, but largely as women farmers who bear the brunt of exclusion.

Agriculture is the backbone of Uganda’s economy with more than 60 percent of the population dependent on it for their livelihood and income. Statistics indicate that 70 percent of agricultural labour is by women. All agricultural activities including crop production, livestock, and fisheries have women at the fore.  However, we realise that the agri-food system does not stop at production; there is processing, distribution, and consumption.

Upon enjoying the bounties of the harvest from women’s efforts, we tend to forget the source it came from. Women farmers have been watched as victims of exclusion in land ownership and control.

Barely 28 percent of agricultural land is under women and the rest is in the control and ownership of men.

Yet at the end of the planting season, they are mandated to have a plentiful harvest. This inability to control land has denied them a chance to access loans without the collateral security required by financial institutions. This has hindered agricultural mechanisation for improved yields. Even with technological advancement, they still have limited access to technology to improve their yields. Extra frustration is in the fact that they benefit less from their output, they control less than 20 percent of the output and less than 13 percent of the earnings. Women’s direct access to financial capital, outputs, and earnings is mediated through men as husbands, fathers, brothers, or other male relatives.

 This on top of the fragility of the ecosystems has left an over-aching hole of trauma in them. In their own homes, they participate in meal preparation, and yet they are the last to eat the leftovers from the children and husband. Is it then undeniable that this category of people is facing gender-based violence?  In crop production, women have small pieces of land of poor-quality soils to cultivate and produce food. In the livestock sector, they control a few and small sized animals usually gifted to them by friends and relatives. In the fishing sector, the gender norms prescribe fishing as a male occupation in Uganda. This is why women have generally tended to carry out the activities of fish processing (such as filleting, smoking, and drying), and fish mongering.

In this case, we refer to rural and traditional small-scale farmers in Uganda who still bear brunt of domestic chores including ensuring household food security and nutrition. A woman who while pregnant has to pick a hoe and go cultivate food so that her family does not go hungry. We are talking of a traditional woman who has to carry a child on her back while performing all these. Moreover, a woman who cannot come to big hotels and conferences to air out her issues because she’s somewhere busy on the farm or in the bush collecting water and wood for fuel and has no time to attend the radio sessions.

In testimony thereof, it seems a few or no individuals are noticing all these as gender-based violence.

No wonder their voices are invisible but rather chained with those of other women categories by human rights organisations. In these 16 days of activism, I find it fit and proper that their voices are aired out, listened to, and solemnly acknowledged for their great but unnoticed contribution.

They can as well have their issues tabled for discussions and added to the formation of laws and policies. They can be organised as a group to claim their rights and say no to the gender-based violence they face in the food system.

 Food is an essential and without it no one, absolutely none can survive to perform daily tasks. As much as they have to perform this, let us create a haven of peace for them.

Miriam Ilukol is a programme assistant, Women in Agri-food system.