MOTHER IN TWO SHIFTS: social collapse

Over the past thirty years, there has been a massive influx woman into workforce in every region in the world. Greater numbers of women are involved in public services and more than that are struggling for their family. Yet, despite progress in every corner of life, women continue to face numbers of obstacles.

When you come to the women live in the third world particularly in Somali territory, you see many women or most of them live in very difficult life circumstance which force them to work heavily in long time with long distance in addition to household doings and child care. These two tasks are very difficult to do parallel,

Women who are doing these two heavily tasks live in both rural and urban areas, although I emphasize on women live in urban areas. Thus, this article mainly focus on women’s work, their socioeconomic status, the cultural limitation and the man and  the women  role in the family according Somali culture and Islamic religion.  .

To do a job is a basic needs that every human being needs to do whether man or women in order to cover basic human survival and sustenance. Therefore, there is a lot of pressure on Somali women in terms of work because most of them work, the most heavily and difficult jobs among community including carry at least 10 litres of milk on their backs by walking across long distance in the big cities like Hargeisa, working in construction by taking heavy stones and  cement using for the buildings and this work is mainly done by women live in western regions in Somaliland such a Borama, selling of vegetables which requires to wake up in 3 am in the night and this really can possibly cause security problem like murderer, rapes and robbery, selling of different kinds of bad habits like chat which is  problematic and long lasting work and also their works including cleaning office buildings and ground in the early morning along with long bending. However, Interpretations and the application of women's rights under Islam are profoundly affected by social and economic factors. Social practices, customary laws, poverty and illiteracy often subvert the status of women. Thus, women's rights in practice in Somaliland and Somali society are generally affected by the prevailing political and socio-economic conditions.

The socioeconomic status of the women is very low, means what they earn is not far enough for the needs and sustenance of their life and their family and  it is not more than from hand to mouth for their family and sometimes it doesn’t cover that needs. There are no other economic sources for health care, education and other basic needs of life that may suddenly occur.

Somali culture has more limitation in terms of life of Somali women because it does not encourage the women education and this become setbacks to the life of women by lowering their life improvement including getting highly-paid jobs, making in entrepreneurship or getting other life opportunities. Observing in every corner from the life of the Somali women, suddenly questions come into your mind: what is the root causes force them to do these heavy and long lasting jobs? Where are the fathers who cover the basic needs for the family? When we answer the first question in actually manner. Mostly this is caused by the life circumstances that faced their families in terms food, education, health care and other life basic needs and the second has to be two, whether the father spends his money and time for bad habit mostly chewing chat or has already dead and that pushes woman to carry family care  but the 85% of man who has family has bad habits by spending all their earnings or salary and this really become family disaster and finally  lead women to go out to cover the needs of their family. This hard conditions and circumstances confined to only women, sometimes causes family destruction.

In conclusion, the place of women in an Islamic society is determined by the Koran, the tradition of the prophet Mohamed (PUB), and the interpretations of Islamic law and tradition s influenced by society customs and practices. Through the revelation of the Koran and the Sunnah of the Prophet Mohamed (PUB), Islam liberated women from unacceptable conditions. Among the rights granted to women by Islam were the rights to life and education as well as the right to inherit, manage and maintain property. However, under Islamic culture man and woman have précised role in the family, which means that man should bring feedings and presents good behavior among the family while women role in the family has to care children and maintain family properties. 

Author: * Mohamed A. Abdi, BSc of ES (Environmental Science). Coordinator & Admin of Knowledge Action Center (KAC).