Water, Women, and Woe in Africa
Amanda White
Women in Africa suffer daily from sexism and are pigeonholed in the duty of retaining, maintaining, and searching for the cheapest and closest water resource in a continent where 14 out of the 47 countries suffer severe water scarcity. It is predicted that by 2025 11 more countries will join this list (WWF). The pressure is on for the women who have traditionally been in charge of the household. Water is the basis of life and women are assigned the task of keeping their families alive even if it means sacrificing their own education, dreams, and their daughters’ futures. An example of a developing country with water and gender inequality issues is Mali. Then there are the facts on water scarcity and the rapid climb across Africa. A detailed description of what women and girls lose because of male superiority, norms, and values. The sole responsibility of water collecting has put pressure on women’s other roles like working in the fields. What has been done and the successes and failures of outside help? Lastly, what can be done in the future and how we can help. Water is one of the most important physical human needs that should be collected, maintained, and retained by ALL human beings. Women and men should share the responsibilities and not place a huge pressure on just one gender because it will negatively affect health and mind, which is too terrible to waste.
Mali is located in the heart of western Africa with a population of 9.4 million and 65 percent of the country is covered by the Saharan, which means that it consists of sparse vegetation and dry lands (N’Djim). About 80 to 90 percent of the total population lives in rural environments and makes most money off of herding and agriculture during the rainy season. Many hope that the two great rivers running through the country (Senegal and Niger) flood and irrigate their patches of field. During the dry season work is slowed and women have to fend for their families. The satisfaction rate for “potable water” is 49 percent so half of the women and girls and their families live on unsatisfactory amounts of water (N’Djim). Because of deforestation and overgrazing the water table is negatively imbalanced which means less ground water to wells, running through taps, or even collection by the streams (WWF). So women need to travel farther and longer to find any type of water because the cost of water from a closer source takes half their income and leaves no money for other basic needs like clothes, food, or shelter. When women and girls have to spend such a majority of their time on fetching water maintaining the household, and childcare; there is no time for anything else. Since the girls of Mali have the monumental task of helping the women with water collection, agriculture upkeep, and other traditional household duties the girls’ education suffers greatly. The literacy rate for women is less than half that of men (11.5percent versus 26.6percent of men). For young girls about 34.4 percent have less primary schooling than the 21.7 percent of boys. This unequal balance in the world of academia will stunt the independence of the future women in Mali
and gender inequality will continue through the generations.
An average household in an African developing country consumes about 40 to 60 liters of water daily for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and personal hygiene (Rathgeber). While in the U.S. on an average daily basis one household uses 600 liters of water (Shah). So its no surprise that only 12 percent of the world’s pop (none are 3rd world countries) uses up 85 percent of Earth’s fresh water (Shah). Lack of safe drinking water contributes to 80 percent of the diseases in the world. This leads to one of the main causes in death and every day 650 people die from Diarrhea (WWF). About 250 million individuals were diagnosed with water borne diseases at the dawn of the 21st century. A majority of 75 percent of those diagnosed resided in tropical, rural, and/or slum-like areas (Aureli).
Women face hardships in education, employment, and health regarding the traditional roles inflicted on them at birth. As an example above many girls in Sub-Saharan Mali where there is an increase in water scarcity have limited amount of education. Although it is studied and predicted that four years of primary education can increase farming productivity up to 10 percent so the 70 to 80 percent majority of women working in the fields could be doing better if allowed more time at a younger age to complete the basic education. The access to Sub-Saharan African schools is also a challenge because they spend so much time helping mothers, grandmother, aunts, and other women of the community that are trekking to the already very distant education facility is a challenge. Also most girls end up repeating grades more often than boys. This could be due to the harassment of peers and other male and some female superiorities hinting at domesticity rather than advancing in mathematics or engineering. Today in Africa there are 57 percent of girls that are not enrolled in primary education.
Apparently running a household, raising children, and fetching water several times a day is not considered work but mothers’ natural responsibilities. Even with the traditional home responsibilities women still occupy 70 to 80 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa workforce in agriculture. They work on 80 percent of the food storage and transportations, 90 percent of the hoeing and weeding, and 60 percent of the harvesting and marketing portions of agriculture. While still spending 70 percent of their own personal time collecting water. Women work on average 461 minutes a day versus men’s work with 371 minutes (Blackden). In Uganda girls work 21.6 hours a week compared to their male classmates whom work 18.8 hours on agriculture (Blackden). So in total women work 25 percent more than men do, but still see no social, economical or ethical benefit to their extra work (Aureli).

There are more ways to attain poor health than just dehydration from lack of water. Women carry up to 20 kilos or water cans on their heads, shoulders, and/or backs to travel 1 to 3 hours back in one direction. This can cause deformities and chronic illnesses from such a heavy weight over long distances for so much of their lives (Aureli). Women exhaust 27 percent of caloric intake in one day just from retrieving and carrying water back to their families (Rathgeber). Without education and constant male dominance women face the heavy burdens of child bearing at a young age while keeping up with household duties and finding water. This all means a high fertility rate, low birth weights, child mortality, and high maternal mortality (Abada). For the children, specifically girls, of this environment also feel the effects of water scarcity and unequal gender roles. There is a low survival rate for grades 5 and lower (notably girls). Boy children are favored in the household and their health takes priority of sisters with 14 percent of girls considered malnourished compared to the 5 percent of boys in Africa.
While women get the task of doing the work of raising children, cooking, cleaning, working in the fields, and being submissive to their husbands which all include the necessity of water that they must fetch on a daily basis. The husbands have control of where they will live, investments of money, and are all head of the household decisions. Since men are in charge of the finances it is hard to convince them to buy water when they have “traditional” wives that could walk longer for free. Though many outsiders looking in have tried to help like the Lesotho Project that more so submitted women to the task of labor orientated positions than executive-decision making. Their water-oriented roles were overlooked by planners and did not make their lives any easier. Those who want to help like donors, volunteers, and planners must identify that water quality is not a main concern for women it is about time management and the cheapest price. Also individual communities prefer different things with regards to water. It may be cheaper to go farther or going on farther walks to water sources is a bonding time for the women of the community. It could be a combination of characteristics on why water-saving projects fail and children and adults still die from water born illnesses. Even when a project does have success the men of the community will take credit on its behalf because they are the superior beings that should receive the awards and possibly pass on the achievements to the women of the household. How long could a donor’s project work? The solutions might only be short-term and not benefit the women and the community in the long run. The distance of the new wells or dam creating streams could still be of great distance, it could be too costly for the households around the solution, there is a lack of expertise and it would be costly to educate the locals, and lastly the unavailability of spare parts when wells breaks down. Women have the most experience with the water and many NGOs believe that they should be given more education on water technology and strategies. This is again is pigeonholing their talents. Let the water handling become a gender neutral thing and then maybe women and their girl children could become more than the water collectors but advance into other areas of expertise.
Water, women, and their woes in Africa are important to address because so many of the problems Sub-Saharan Africa faces could be solved if more people become aware of the effects water scarcity and male superiority poses. It is deadly to have such a big responsibility on one gender of each household. This causes a decrease in education health, and personal time for women and girls. Women and girls are subjected to hard labor and the relentless task of keeping the household and members sanitary, nourished, and hydrated. This is a vicious cycle that will not stop unless support for equality is raised and water scarcity is solved. Women are forever tied to the wells and streams they collect from because that is all they are allowed to know. This war of resource responsibility needs to stop therefore; a revolution can begin for more gender equality among the Sub-Saharan African communities.