According to a survey conducted last month, 24% of all Shiree beneficiary households are headed by females. (Shiree is a partnership between the governments of UK and Bangladesh which aims to help extremely poor people out of poverty.) Out of these females, approximately half of them are widows. The rest live with husbands who are chronically ill or disabled, or they have been abandoned/divorced by husbands who remarried for fresh dowries when their economic situations got dire.
I wanted to investigate the livelihoods of these extremely poor female household heads further so I went to Khulna and spoke with 33 women, each with a different story echoing the same structural gender problem.
Women in female-headed households are often categorised as particularly vulnerable and ‘the poorest of the poor’, compared to women living in male headed households. In fact many NGOs state that one of the most important characteristics of extremely poor households is the absence of able bodied male labour power, ie an adult working male. A connected mantra is the concept of an ‘intergenerational transmission of disadvantage;’ that the deprivation of female household heads is passed on to their children because female heads cannot ‘properly support their families’. Yet, does ‘feminisation of household headship’ necessarily equal a worse fate for women and family breakdown? Indeed, I found that the common perception - that female-headed households are doomed and will inevitably fail to sustainably graduation from extreme poverty - needs to be challenged.
From all the strong women I met, struggling to support their families without a husband, I discovered one general trend. When women become sole breadwinners in their households they are forced into a situation of economic activity that they were previously restricted from, always forced by society to depend on their husbands. Their choices often remain constrained by the gender normative framework of society meaning their only acceptable types of income generating activities are homestead based (eg livestock rearing and home gardening), which have lower economic returns. Marketing products and seeking more profitable jobs outside the homestead is often still beyond their scope.
Yet, there are exceptions to this scenario. Let me share one inspiring story of an incredible woman I met, who made me believe that women living alone can become independent and empowered and raise children who will also look beyond restrictive gender norms.
Sakha Begum is from a poor Muslim family. She used to live with her husband whom she married at an early age so that her family could save on dowry. (Younger girls = cheaper dowry.) Her husband beat her and spent their money on drinking and gambling. He never allowed her to leave their home or to speak before she was asked. The only work she did then was look after neighbours’ children.
She wanted a divorce but her parents and in-laws were against it, so finally she boldly sought help from a religious leader who handled the divorce. Her family and village turned their backs on her and no one gave her any support. Her ex-husband asked her to return but she refused. She moved to a small shed in the village and survived day-by-day on income from casual domestic-helper jobs and cleaning jobs at the local hospital. She didn’t eat more than 1-2 meals a day. She says she would have starved had it not been for the Union Chairman who donated rice to her from time to time. After 6 months, the Shiree livelihood project found her and gave her support in the form of a cash transfer. She was given 9000 taka which she invested in livestock and a sari business. She bought saris from the market and travels village to village (up to 10km away from her home) by bus on her own to sell them. As this prospered, she has also initiated a water distribution business collecting safe water and selling it at markets and tea stalls. She feels no shame travelling far distances on her own, though there is a stigma against it. She feels confident: “Why should people speak ill of me? I haven’t done anything bad to them.” With minimal support, Sakha has managed to establish her own livelihood. She is financially independent and happier than ever before. She seems to be a very clever business woman: she explained to me that she only sells if she can get a fair price. She keeps her savings at her aunt’s house and has reinvested some of her profit in a sanitary latrine; a tube well; a nice, big house; a bed; TV; kitchen ware; fan; CD player and mobile phone. Her savings, she says, will mainly go towards her adopted daughter’s education. (She adopted a baby girl who had been abandoned by her mother after her husband left her.) Her words were "I have never felt happier. I can do everything myself now, and no one can stop me. I will never marry again and I will not let my daughter marry either!" She was proud to tell us her life story and she said she wants to help other women who are also in difficult situations to become more independent.
In conclusion, we cannot assume that extremely poor households headed by females are 'too difficult to target'. Though they are vulnerable they can become self-sufficient. Importantly, these women just need to be given the opportunity, the confidence and the motivation to break the gender normative framework they were trapped in throughout their lives.