Cultural Practices for Social Justice

Positive Minds | Positive Stories | Edition 016

The empowerment of women and the protection of children are not contemporary issues. They were already well entrenched in the social organisation of many communities before we, as development and humanitarian practitioners, made them a global agenda.

Here is my experience in June 2009.

As an employee of an international organisation, I was in charge, with my team, of preparing the 2010 child sponsorship campaign in the North-West of Benin. One of the activities involved in this preparation was to contact the local authorities as well as the moral authorities of the targeted communities to recruit new "ambassadors". This initial contact enables us to explain the work we will be doing in their communities and to seek their support in its success.

During these initial contacts, my team and I were given an excellent presentation on a part of Fulani culture. Our host gave us a lecture on development and women empowerment:

In our Fulani culture, before a woman gets married, her future husband must give her a cow and ensure that her future in-laws take good care of her. This is the guarantee of the well-being of his future wife and her children. Let me explain.

With the cow that has been offered to her, the bride-to-be will generate income for her while the husband provides for the needs of the couple. She will milk the cow, sell the raw milk or make cheese from it and sell it. Over the years, as the cow gives birth and the herd grows, the wife's capital grows as well. Thus, gradually, she will establish the basis of her financial wealth. The husband has no right to dispose of this cow or the resulting herd even when he finds it difficult to provide for his small family. He must find other ways to solve his troubles. Why is this so?

Well, because the woman's cow is her and her children's safety net. Since the husband has the right to marry other women, this right must in no way push his wives and their children into precarity.

As you can see, this is a mechanism that in itself contains the seeds of women's empowerment and the protection of their children from the vulnerability that might arise.

Moral: as a development practitioner, always engage the communities with an open and unbiased mind. Identify and value good cultural practices and build on them. This is one of the best strategies to have an impact at scale and, and to ensure ownership and therefore sustainability of projects.

And you, what cultural practices are you aware of that development workers can build on to further women's empowerment and child protection? Please use the comment section to share them.