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Near Dakar last week, I met a remarkable group of women working to try to convince their sons not to make the perilous trip to Europe as illegal immigrants. The first thing that was unusual about them was that they were all wearing the same dress – about 70 of them, all together, crammed into a teeny office, in the street out front, in the neighbouring houses.
It turned out that the members of the Collectif des femmes pour la lutte contre l'immigration clandestine au Sénégal had been recognized that morning by Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade for their work, and had put on their official dress for the occasion at State House.
(Across Africa, organizations – from Roman Catholic parishes in Congolese villages to Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party – have cotton printed with their logo and slogan, and then make it into outfits for supporters. I've interviewed women wearing Mr. Mugabe on their skirts, and "Happy 25th Anniversary St. Basil's Church", and "Long Live the ANC!" and the AIDS ribbon twined around the words "Together we can stop HIV! Wear a condom every time!")
But once I got past the odd sensation of talking to a room full of women wearing what appeared to be the curtains, it was a sad and inspiring conversation. They had all lost at least one child, when he attempted to cross the Atlantic in a small wooden canoe, in search of work in Spain or Italy, and they were working to try to create jobs at home so their boys will stay home. They were motivated in no small measure by guilt, because they, like other Senegalese mothers, had urged their children to make the trip on which he died.
Yayi Diouf, the founder of the group, told me that was a survival tactic in a society where nearly all marriages are polygamous – women rely on the earnings of their older sons, especially when they fall out of favour with their husband, usurped by younger wives.
"In this society, it's males that are important – a house with 1,000 women and one son, it's a house with one son," she said.
I pointed out that women might be disregarded or unvalued in her community, but it was the women who had banded together into this organization that had done so much to raise awareness about the dangers of migration and were doing their best to generate economic growth in the community.
She gave me a look that mixed scorn and pity, apparently amazed at how little I understood.
"Men, they've got lots of wives, and lots of children," she said. "It's not their problem."
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Adrian Archer from Canada writes: Don't you think it's a little insulting and culturally insensitive to call their fancy dresses, made up special for the occasion, "curtains"?
- Posted 21/05/08 at 3:05 PM EDT | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment
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Chris E. from Canada writes: Only in the Western world do women have so many rights and freedoms. Thank our race for that. This high-water mark of civility is going to be hard to maintain if our race is diluted by cultures that don't share our values.
- Posted 30/08/08 at 2:03 PM EDT | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment
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