Niger's women and children starve as men hoard food

[emad]

Niger's women and children starve as men hoard food
By Kim Sengupta in Maradi, Niger
Published: 18 August 2005

Noura Abdurrahi's four children were crying from hunger, and she knew there was food in the house. But her husband, Musa, had locked it away, out of her reach, when he had left to search for work the previous week.

What happened to Noura at a village near Zinder is replicated through much of the stricken communities of Niger. In the midst of starvation and disease, many men in rural areas are determined to control the meagre supplies, seemingly oblivious to the suffering of their families.

So acute is the problem that Unicef and international charities have launched urgent projects focusing exclusively on women. It is, they say, a far more certain way of ensuring the children and the elderly - the most vulnerable - get at least the very minimum needed for survival.

This extraordinary situation appears to be peculiar to Niger. Neighbouring countries caught up in the crisis caused by droughts and plagues of locusts - Mali, Mauritania and Burkina - are also predominantly Muslim with patriarchal cultures. Yet there, aid workers say, women are not sidelined to anything like the same degree.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article306582.ece

[SharonAnn]

1. It's something I've noticed before. Seems like most of the starving

people are women, children, and the elderly.

I first noticed it in Somalia where we would see pictures of this, then pictures of theyoung, well-fed men with guns who were stealing and controlling all the food aid that was sent there.

[TahitiNut]

2. This has happened for ages.

Even in the monarchies of Europe, the military and strongest laborers were given preference. It's the same throughout history all over the world.

[kestrel91316]

3. Well this will certainly solve the overpopulation problem in due time.

:sarcasm:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. I remember Margaret Mead talking about this problem

(and she's been dead for nearly 30 years).

She said that if she were running an aid agency, she would hand food out only to older women, because they would see that the children got fed first and would have the authority in the community to tell the young men to back off.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

5. Women and children are expendable, you see.

A man can always buy another wife and start a new family, at almost any age.

Fuckers. :mad:

[undergroundpanther]

6. Sexism

when women and kids are considered by society as mens"propety" men can throw them away without shame.
I hate any dominator that takes advantage and turns a blind eye to others suffering.Domination while others suffer is EVIL and wrong.And right now too many men are getting away with domination without responsibility. Sometimes I think if more women fought back in ways against dominating men that made a real impression on them and that hurt things would change fast.