Women's Forum

SHRO-CAIRO WOMEN'S FORUM on WOMEN'S ROLE IN DEVELOPMENT
From The Sudanese Human Rights Quarterly, Issue No. 1, Summer 1995

The Forum focused upon the role of rural women in developing Sudanese society in the course of its evolution. The SHRO-Cairo women’s participants included: Fatima Habani, Rose Kafe, Zeinab Osman, Sulima Yousif, and Gara Osman.

Sulima Yousif, Sudanese Women’s Union (SWU)

Speaking for the Sudanese Women’s Union (SWU), Sulima Yousif explained that the contribution of women with men in nearly all roles of life is started up with activities such as building huts [as a stereotyped home] all over the country. Other activities include farming and raising cattle, using their products, and looking after the husband, children and the other member of the family.

An example of the capacity of rural women in development, despite their limited resources, is illustrated in the process of house building. The women use sources from the surrounding environment, such as wood, ropes, the local materials of palm trees, and soil. They also use camel wool and goats hair to make carpets and other handicrafts like baskets, cleaning instruments, etc.

Some of these manufactured products are sold to generate income. Women work competently with men in agriculture and even succeed more than men in processes like selling, savings, drying vegetables and fruits to make drinks, using corn to produce the local Sudanese drink “Hilo-Mur”, and manufacturing with cotton family clothes to save money.

A rural woman participates actively as labor force in the cultivation and picking-up of cotton cash crop. She brings drilled water from deep wells or nearby rivers. She utilizes cotton threads to lighten gas lamps and she uses milk obtained from cattle to make butter and yogurt and sell them in the nearby villages. With the money gained, she could buy a piece of gold for her ornaments.

In the south and east of Sudan, women play a significant role in development by harnessing natural resources for their needs. It is concluded that the women through Bedouins or rural citizens with low educational attainment constitute a promising force for economic development.

After achievement of the national independence of the Sudan, a degree of educational progress helped to decrease illiteracy and to raise awareness of society. Women gained a portion of educational progress that which entitled a woman to work in fields like teaching and nursing and enabled her to exercise political and trades unionist activities with a view to shift society from a consuming community to a productive one.

The Ministry of Education established a Development Center in Shendi and Women’s Guidance Villages. These opened up new horizons for the women, as they became a major economic power on equal terms with men to reduce unemployment and to achieve more and more development. In spite of all this remarkable success, the Ministry of Education failed to expand the experiment to the other backward villages of the country due to failures of development administration.

Economic devastation, war, and armed robbery have pushed people to escape from areas of production to live in shantytowns around the suburbs of the major cities and regional capitals. Moreover, the campaigns of displacement and work dismissals diminished the chances available for women to partake in development projects.

Sulima Yousif finally said that the Sudanese Women’s Union was aware of the United Nations planning to initiate development projects in the Sudan. The most important aspect at this stage is that these projects must start first in the South, East, and West Sudan with the assurance that the UN would be supervising and following-up the projects lest they be used for the continuation of war or strengthening of the NIF atrocious rule.

Gara Osman, SHRO-Cairo Member

There is a center in Bani Swaif city here in Egypt called Bayad Al-Arab that offered us an opportunity to nominate some women to attend a training workshop for 5 days. She said they were invited to attend a similar workshop with 10 other associations from different Egyptian villages. They visited neighboring villages, participated in fieldwork and witnessed the processes of generating gas and electricity. She suggested that one project that might be suitable for the Sudanese environment could be based on the manufacturing of palm leaves as a substitute of woods.

Fatima Habani, Sudanese Women’s Forum in Egypt (SWF)

Fatima believed that development is the aim of all countries and societies as mankind is the prime mover of development. Both men and women must be equally addressed in handling the issue of development. The process of development in ancient and modern societies is dominated by men. But the reason of this situation is due to the confiscation of the men to the role to be played by women, rather than any disability on the part of the women to take up development responsibilities.

The speaker insisted that our duty now is to deal with this situation as a apast experience since the UN General Assembly adopted in December q979 the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The skills of women must be developed, as well as their consciousness. A good example in this respect is the Association of the Saeed (Southern Egypt) for Education and Development – a foundation that has been broadly laid on self-aid and it aims to eliminate illiteracy in order to develop skills and educational attainment. Thousands have been graduated from this institution.

We have to work towards the setting up of a Sudanese association [in exile] like the Saeed Association and to allocate a special fund for the association to create small income-generating projects for the women. We can further support the association from the income procured to aid its members financially and socially in order to advance the abilities and skills of women abroad.

Zeinab Osman, SWF President

As Coordinator of the Forum, Zeinab Osman presented a final statement appreciating the cooperation previously made with Professor Farouq Mohamed Ibrahim that enabled the speakers of the SWF in this SHRO-Cairo Forum to participate earlier in the Bani Swaif Training Workshop.