social-cultural issues that affect women's participation in agriculture development in south-central Somalia

1. MAKERERE UNIVERSITY
Master of science in Agricultural Extension and Education
BY:
Hassan Mumin Ali

2. Content Outline
• Introduction
• Insecurity
• Early Marriage
• Lack of Educational opportunity
• Religious and Cultural (boy preference) barriers
• Recommendation

4. Introduction
• Socio-cultural factors are things that can affect our lifestyles as a society. They can have an
influence on individual behaviours depending on one’s’ social values. Some of them could
be religion, economic status, education, family, politics, cultural values etc. They are the
facts and experiences that influence an individuals' personality, attitudes and lifestyle. Socio-
cultural factors involve both social and cultural elements of the society (Kottak, 2000:16-
19and Ember and Carol, 2004:197-2000).

5. Socio-cultural issues that affect women’s
participation in agricultural Development
• Early marriage
Cultural Practices Child marriage, which is also known as early marriage, is believed to be a
serious problem in many parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America and Somalia.

6. Early Marriage cont..
• Early marriages has effect to women participation for agriculture development
because it Is community practice early marriages which hindered girls from
accessing agriculture sectors, because when women married at a young age were
pressured to stay at home, look after children and care for the husband and family
which limited women from agriculture development as women had to cope with
taking care of their families

7. Effect of Early Marriage
• Early marriage is commonly practiced across all regions in Somalia, particularly
south-central Somalia which is the area of research. According to the responses
from the local community, early marriage has an obvious negative effect on the
young girls who are married off at a young age: they mainly and foremost suffer
psychologically, emotionally and physically

8. Insecurity
• Insecurity is a significant barrier to female movement toward agriculture
development in south-central Somalia, female are scared, hurt and rape by an
armed person. Most husband doesn’t allow his wife to go out of the house
because of fear that bad things happening to them due to the general state
insecurity

9. Influence of Culture and religious on Women’s
participation in agriculture Development
• Some Culture do not allow women participation in decision making or join
political process. This due to the prevalent male-controlled system which inhibit
women from participating in public discourse and decision making even at
grassroots level.
• On the other hand culture excludes women being a leadership in a certain position
such us agriculture extension officer, regional agriculture manager and e.t.c.

10. Influence of culture and religious cont.….
• In some instances men extension workers are not supposed to interact
(training) with women’s farmers because of the cultural beliefs and
norms which hinders knowledge transfer to women farmers even some
religious they belief that mixing gender (male and Female) is evil,

11. Influence of Education on women’s participation in agriculture
development

12. Influence of educational on women’s
participation in agriculture development
• Education level of women have an impact on their participation in any development sectors.
• Women/girls position in the society are seen rather as an asset to another family where she will get
married to therefore not worth investing in.
• On the other issues during their teenager there was cultural barriers ( boy child preference) in south-
central Somalia it is calculated that boys disproportionality outnumber than girls in upper primary and
secondary schools due to conservative cultural norms and practices that often deny girls the opportunity
to get education

13. Figure 1: preference of boys over girls

14. Recommendation and conclusion
• Empowered women farmers can increase their income, develop a stable rural
livelihood and contribute to ensuring food security. However, true empowerment
of women should move beyond livelihoods to wealth creation and business
leadership in agriculture.
• and ownership is central to women’s empowerment and success in agriculture in
Africa.

15. Reference
• Brislin, R. (1993). Understanding Culture's Influene on Behaviour. Fort
Worth : Harcourt Brace.
• Kottak, 2000:16-19and Ember and Carol, 2004:197-2000 social
culture definition
• Conflict and Gender in Somalia. March 2013.
• Penin, A. 1999.The impact of education in small crop-holder crop
production system.South Africa. Agrekon publishers.