Young girls and women pushed to cut and sell sticks a modern slavery or exploitation?

Pressure on local women who cut and sell sticks to make a living is getting worse, some concerned residents say. In fact, it is almost a culture for these women to forcefully travel miles away with ties and bundles of raw and heavy sticks daily on their heads from their communities. They often travel with the raw sticks on foot  to sell them in the nearby city of Makeni, north eastern Sierra Leone, whilst their husbands are said to comfortably and confidently await their wives whose primary obligations are to buying  packets of cigarettes or kola nuts from the hard sales of the raw sticks for awaiting husbands in the villages. An unfixed price for a tie or bundle of stick ranges between Le15-25,000, depending on the purchasing power in the market.  (Photo: How young girls and women riskily wait for customers… )

A careful investigation conducted on the pathetic and inhumane practice has it that, it is a burden and daily responsibility on the vulnerable women to cut the sticks by themselves from the bushes which primarily requires a few miles walk off.  From the bushes, the women will secondarily  take the heavy raw sticks to their villages via the main feeder roads. The following morning, the vulnerable women would leave their homes as early as 6-7 am for Makeni city.

Covering series of miles  from different villages and proximities on foot, within and around the city of Makeni such as Kathantha, Maforay, Kathiry, Mabai, Kabu, Makorombo, Mabele etc, the vulnerable and highly exploited women carry the heavy raw sticks on their heads distance for not less than six to ten miles before they could reach the northern city, their final destination for sale.

Most pathetically, as the women emerge from different villages and distances of walk, followed by their husband’s high expectations for quick sales, most of the vulnerable women will proceed without rest, another fresh roam within the city of Makeni with the heavy raw sticks on their heads  in desperate search for immediate and instant buyers of the sticks and  most times at cheaper costs. This is prior to their husband’s timetables for quick return home. However, if they do not get sales, the women will obviously leave the bundles of sticks with some people whom they choose as caretakers until when they shall have stocked the market with some other bundles of sticks the following day.

Nevertheless, as we sink deep into the rainy season, these women out of fatigue, usually, regularly and commonly take the risks of posing and melting under the hot burning sun as well as  under minor  rainfalls as they patiently wait for buyers of the sticks by the roadsides. That has been a  part of the women’s regular and daily sales styles and custom. One of their dangerous gathering and waiting point for sale is specifically, a street called Station Road in the city of Makeni.

Inhumanely done to the highly suffering and vulnerable women is that, based on their total eagerness for quick sales, they are further jack assed and  exploited by their customers (buyers) where in case a client decides to buy a bundle or more of the sticks, at that juncture,  the suffering women are left with no option, but to further carry on head, the bundle (s) of sticks to the client’s destination regardless the distance within the city.

After the hard sales, equally become some other binding burdens and responsibilities upon returning home.  The women would  shop their cooking utensils, including packets of cigarettes or kola nuts for their confident and proud husbands at home. Unbelievably, the fatigue-less women also go to prepare food again for the home. Failing to do all of these,  Aminata Bangura a victim, told this medium that they get the hell out of their husbands.

The inhumane sufferings of these women have pathetically moved some concerned residents and authorities within Makeni City.  Among them is one Mr. Alpha Turay, a man who claimed to be a Muslim believer and neighbor who lives around Station Road coincidentally told this reporter that he has for long been taking his time to cajoling the suffering women to forming and organizing themselves into formidable groups and as well as choosing a leader for representation. Turay also advised them to completely avoid the street occupation, reminding them of their exposure to what he called, the possible tendencies of  road and fatal accidents. He added to  say that he is also seriously frowned at  what he called the inhumane jackass of the young girls and women of further carrying the sticks to the homes of the buyers/purchasers whose rights he said, stops after the purchase and nothing beyond that.

Meanwhile, one of the city’s concerned and pro-active Councilor for Ward 89 in Constituency 28 in Makeni, Samuel Howard, coincidentally visited the group of the suffering women sometime ago along their street market at Station Road in Makeni. Howard assures to present the vulnerable women’s case to the Council because it is an eyesore for the women to occupying  the streets and as well as parading  the city with the sticks on their heads, the Councilor told this reporter. I have been slowly following their unfortunate suffering activities even before I became Councilor, he said. And I strongly believe the city Mayor-Sunkarie K. Kamara being a woman; will act swiftly to hastily seek a decent market point for these women if not try to find ways and means of summoning neither hold responsible, the women’s  wicked husbands for what he called, modernized slavery and exploitation.

What seriously doubts me is that, how can village headmen and Chiefs sit aside to watching the rights of these women being inhumanely violated with impunity… I suppose, the very local authorities including  headmen and Chiefs must have been in conspiracy to equally exploit perhaps, their very wives and children, Councilor Howard suggests. This is serious, and something must quickly be done about it, he concluded.

However, there has also been a concerned staff working for a local radio called “Radio-Mankneh 95.1 in Makeni. He is Pilot Idriss, who relentlessly blasts on air on the reckless perambulation of the suffering women within the city of Makeni. Idriss has been calling on the attention of authorities in Makeni to address the inhumane sufferings of these women as well as their indecent and risky occupation of the street  and always describing it uncivilized in this modern world. Since then, no authority apart from Councilor Howard has ever shown up, authoritatively. Along the line, an IT Specialist, Idriss Sowa has suggested his willingness to propel a project on the women’s sticks sales so as to maintain sanity as well as maximizing profit in their interests and that of the city’s pride, Sowa noted.

To Be Continued as development progresses

By Alie Mozart Sesay, Makeni

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