Thursday, December 8, 2011

Women and Roads: A View on grassroots women road builders in Morogoro Rural District

The goal for full involvement of male and female community members throughout the development process in not new. To ensure that this is achieved, gender mainstreaming or institutionalization as well as the designing of strategic actions for supporting gender sensitivity are the norm. But perhaps it is not unusual to ask such questions as: why gender mainstreaming is needed in projects or programmes; how the gender mainstreaming shall be effected; or, what levels of gender mainstreaming are desirable at programme, project, institution, collaborator, and beneficiary or user level.

Gender mainstreaming in roadworks: Morogoro Rural District

The fact that gender issues are not provided systematic consideration in roadwork activities is undeniable. For instance, in Morogoro Region, employment of labourers for roadworks in government sponsored road construction activities does not capitalise on the established comparative advantages of employing female labourers, as compared to male labourers. Although it is an established fact among contractors and some of the male engineers, that women labourers are comparatively better than their male colleagues, yet, no specific priority is given to female labourers.

Also, the approach to female labourers is normally very gender stereotyped. When employed, they are directed to types of tasks that remind of the domestic gender division of labour. Moreover, most of the regional engineers are indifferent to promoting the employment of more female workers in road works, for no good reason.

A bit of commendable inroads have been achieved by the Gender Expert in the Regional Engineer’s Office Through hard work, she has managed to identify female Petty Traders that could be upgraded into full small scale contractors. Furthermore, she has identified need to promote female Petty Contractors and an entry point into getting more women into the field. It is obvious that gender blindness exists in most activities because the selection of beneficiaries is usually not focused on meeting gender differentiated needs. Therefore most roadworks projects or programmes have no specific priority given to female labourers or contractors.

Opinions of road contractors on women road builders

    In a meeting held with contractors involved in one of the donor funded roads support projects in Morogoro region, whereby more than 25 contractors (1 female), attended, it was revealed that some of the contractors were gender aware and positively inclined towards gender issues. Even quotations given in Tenders by the contractors, contain a breakdown on the number of female and male employees in the tendering firm. Nevertheless, they all demanded a gender sensitisation event. According to the contractors, they keep statistics on both male and female labourers. These records on labourers are disaggregated by sex. Female labourers normally constitute up to 50% of labourers on site clearing work.
   
Advantages of employing female labourers were numerous. They included that: they are hard working; are not unnecessarily argumentative like men; are consistent (do their work diligently); are dependable (do not cause unnecessary trouble); are recommended for site clearing work; road formation work construction of culverts; grader spreading work; cooking and making aggregates). Also it was especially emphasised that when they get paid (which is equally to male employees) they head straight home with their income instead of meandering like their male colleagues). Therefore, income earned by female labourers goes straight into supporting families in items such as food, schooling, clothing, health and other social requirements. As concerns disadvantages of employing female labourers. The contractors mentioned that these included the facts that: they cannot throw soil upwards (e.g., in ditch making); they are still not fully attracted to roadworks (they find it too demanding compared to household work); they are sometimes restricted to participate by their husbands; they are often left out when more equipment is used (e.g., in road formation, and culvert works).

The contractors had several additional opinions on employing more female labourers. They mentioned that female labourers can do anything (there is no permanent limit). Up to 50% of employees in site clearance could easily be female. Drainage works is another area where female labourers could make at east 30% of employees. The contractors however, had the view that it was the government technical or engineering staff that was not positively inclined towards employment of female labourers. They thought the reasons might be that most government staff are not well acquainted with gender issues (not sufficiently gender sensitive). Other reasons included: government staff (the client) prefers equipment based work which limits the involvement of female community members. For instance, up to 75% of employees in Vatican Maintenance Company are female (but REO’s office disqualified the labour intensive approach and did not give a conducive alternative).

In order to increase the number of female labourers in roadworks interventions, the contractors suggested that: there should be more female bosses at road sites, because male bosses are sometimes abusive to female labourers; training more women in bridge and road works; awarding routine maintenance jobs to female labourers or groups; and, promoting female Petty Contractors in routine maintenance works. They concluded that, giving more support to women could imply up to 60% of labourers being female. 50% of employees in all casual work could easily be female (as a matter of fact, 40% was the proposed minimum by the contractors). They added that, skilled female labourers are available at VETA.


Factors that determine women’s participation in roadworks

There are obviously numerous such factors that determine or influence women’s participation in roadworks, however, these may include:

      inadequacies in the recruitment system (male dominated and sex biased recruitment);
      cultural norms, attitudes and biases (that it is only strong muscular men who are required for road work);
      lack of support services an incentives at work sites (sanitary facilities or child care services);
      insufficient skills and knowledge of conventional techniques or technologies (inadequate prior experience in road or construction work);
      inadequate information of requirement for female labour on road sites.

Detrimental effects to women’s participation in roadworks

There are obviously numerous such factors that determine or influence women’s participation in roadworks, however, these may include:

      inadequate attention to domestic household tasks (women have to pay for replacement labour on tasks that are culturally theirs);
      unfair or unjust treatment or victimisation (inadequate experience to employment exposes women to victimisation);
      sexual harassment (sexual favours could be demanded in exchange of recruitment);
      insufficient skills and knowledge of conventional techniques or technologies (inadequate prior experience in road or construction work);
      inadequate information of requirement for female labour on road sites.

Case Study # 1: Female Labourers at the Techno site

An account of women labourers

During a field visit to roadworks  sites in Morogoro’s Road Support Project activities (MRSP), I had an opportunity to meet face to face with a gang of female labourers. They mentioned their names as, Mariam Stephano, Salima Abdul, Sauda Mfaume and Kurwa Ali. They were employed by the Techno Construction firm. Although they were initially six in their group, only 4 remain. The other women have fallen out due to increased demand for labour in their farm work.

This was necessary for them to drop out because the roadwork starts at 08:00 in the morning and ends after 17:00 in the evening. The female labourers said they normally work for 9 days before breaking. Their tasks include: slashing grass (a ratio of 9 women to 17 men), digging trenches, leveling the road (4 women to 17 men), assisting in culvert construction (only 1 woman has participated), drainage making (4 women to 17 men), and sweeping (only the 4 women sweep roads). When I came across them, they were raking and leveling the road sides.

The female labourers do not partake in such tasks as those involving throwing soil upwards. The women were recruited through a public announcement (where a drum was used to call people to meet in February 1998). In the public meeting, it was announced that women were encouraged to join in the road works. Recruitment was done in terms of stretches. The female groups acknowledge that roadwork is more difficult than domestic household chores, especially digging and throwing soil onto upper banks. However the work provides them with a steady income even in off farm seasons. The money helps in meeting the costs for family food requirements, school fees and uniforms, sicknesses and the occasional domestic emergencies or disasters.

According to the group, women labourers are reknown for the following characteristics: they rarely argue with their foremen; they do not answer abusively, their work is excellent. They are paid every fortnight, and work each day of the week. They claimed to have gotten used to each other. Women’s involvement in roadworks was previously thought as a far fetched idea. They said such work was considered as male.Therefore before the meeting where women’s involvement was clearly demanded, the women had never thought of taking up such work. The skills they have so far gained include mixing concrete and making aggregates. Their key fear was what would happen when the employer moves to another site. Being women, they considered it impossible to move with the employer. Also, since they had not formed a group, they were thus uncertain on their future.

An account of the Site Supervisor

According to the site supervisor, Mr. Moses Kwameka, when the project started most women hesitated to come and take up work. This was also fueled by the supervisor’s fear for working with women labourers because he had never done so before. But the firm’s boss, Mr. Phares Jacob, encouraged the site supervisor to recruit female labourers. The supervisor said women labourers are better workers. They take initiative, and one does not need to follow-up on them. They perform well and are harder working than their male colleagues.

Most of the female employed by the firm are of Luguru origin. Most of them view roadwork as tough, some withdraw after failing. He pointed ditch digging and ridge making as the toughest jobs if one uses handtools. The site supervisor employs labourers according to demand. According to his ledger, on 18th September 1998 and onwards, there were 9 women labourers among 33 employees; on 1st to 15th October 1998, they had 8 female labourers among 28 labourers; and, between 1st and 15th November 1998, there were 6 female employees among 26 labourers. The women were responsible for cleaning the ditches, curving backslopes, removing roots and levelling. Mr. Kwameka suggests that women labourers could be encouraged to participate more, but they are hindered by their own fear to venture out, and their husbands’ jealousy.

Case Study # 2: Female Labourers at the Alliance site

On visiting the Expo Alliance Group, I was met with Mr. Lucas Mwita, who was a site manager. Mr. Mwita mentioned that there was indeed importance in recruiting women as labourers on roadworks.  He nevertheless insisted that roadworks are hard. His site is lead by 2 all male staff. There were around 15 to 20 labourers employed by the firm at the moment of visiting. During peak labour demand period, they had employed up to 40 labourers on site clearance work. Fifty percent of the labourers were female. Women labourers came to the office for employment, from the neighbouring villages. Labourers are paid Shs. 1000/= daily, during peak periods, and Shs. 1500/= during non-peak periods.

He said women were known to be diligent workers, similar to men. However, he mentioned that most of those who join labourer positions are single parents. The type of work women labourers do most involves: site clearance, ditch digging, water fetching, removal of stones during road formation stage, removal of other debris on the road.  Mr. Mwita believes women should be encouraged to participate more in such activities as site clearance, road formation, construction of culverts, stock piling of murram, grader spreading and bowser or roller compaction. The tasks that are considered difficult for women labourers to do include: boulder removal, digging and throwing soil upwards, and concrete work.

Case Study # 3:   Female Labourers at the Seco Engineering site

Seco engineers and Contractors group, had employed more than 140 labourers at its peak period (e.g., during site clearing). Female labourers made up more than 50% of the labourers then). Women came on their own will; there were no special efforts to cajole them. Nevertheless, Mr. Christopher Kisanga, the site supervisor, emphasised that more women come out if you call them. However, the firm uses age to filter out those not needed.

The tasks most of the women did involved fetching drinking water. Few women were involved in assisting in road formation work, building of culverts and helping in mixing of mortar (one woman was knowledgeable in mixing mortar, she learned on the job). These tasks recruited few women because machines were used and sometimes skills were required. Women are paid Shs. 1,000/= daily as labourers. Masons are paid up to Shs. 2,500/= daily (mostly male). The site supervisor was of the opinion that women labourers work better than their male colleagues. They are not troublesome, they work neatly, and they need not repeat a task. He mentioned that male labourers are normally argumentative and rush their work so that they leave early, and thus the quality is poor. The tough tasks for women are trench digging, because the soil is rocky. Women’ participation was recommended in jobs such as: site clearance, road formation, labour intensive spreading or leveling, and supplying water for drinking.

[TGNP's Gender and Development Seminar Series- GDSS Paper by Edward Mhina. Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP), August 1999]

Bibliography



ITECO                                                  “Morogoro Roads Support Project (MRSP). Phase III,  1996 - 1999.’’ Project Document. May 1996.

WARIOBA, Christine & MHINA, Edward. ’Report on Gender Diagnosis of SDC Supported Projects’’      A TGNP Consultancy Report, March 1998.

KAFANABO, Joyce, Et Al.,                   ‘’Study on Women Participation in Road Works in the Coast Region.’’ DANIDA, August 1998.

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