African Woman and Child Feature Service

The wise English saying, ‘necessity is the mother of all invention’, is making great sense in the North Eastern region following years of incessant devastating drought that has seen thousands of livestock die.

Drought necessity has pushed five women in the remote Ijara District in Garissa County into a rare venture in a hitherto male dominated trade.

Binto Abdullahi, Marian Ismail Gedi, Marian Abdi, Mariam Hilowle and Halima Siyat are not your ordinary Somali women in a buibui and headscarves.

‘The five beardless men’, as they are popularly known in Ijara District, are causing a storm in the conservative Somali pastoralist community for venturing into a male designated territory.

The curiosity from the locals on this ‘abnormal venture’ has become a blessing in disguise for the ‘pentagon’ who are enjoying booming business in the butchery trade.

Slaughtering goats

The brave women took the hard task of slaughtering goats to eke out a living for their respective families after the breadwinners (husbands), were denied their masculine pride of providing for the family by the ravaging drought which took away their livestock.

They say: “Our action of venturing into butchery trade is putting immense pressure on our families, but curiosity among the residents has been nectar that pulls curious customers to our business.”

“Here it was unheard of for the Somalis to imagine that a woman can slaughter an animal. It is a wide departure from the ‘known,” Jimale Omar told the Reject.

At daybreak, the women will be found at the slaughterhouse among men donned in flowing white gowns with knives and cutlasses in hand slitting open the throats of goats and sheep as well as skinning the carcasses.

Unlike other well groomed women, their scent is meat and their nails are polished with blood stains.

The revolutionary journey of the five women started in early 1999 when Hilowle, 40, the eldest among them, saw a niche trade in butchery.

“My family was wallowing in the effects of a devastating drought that swallowed up over 500 animals,” explains Hilowle. She adds: “My husband was devastated by the misfortune. I realised that relying solely on animals was not safe. You lose your livestock and your life comes tumbling down like a pack of cards.”

For the children

“I ventured into the business of slaughtering goats and sheep to help my children. Many could not believe that a Somali woman could run a butchery leave alone meddling with men or killing an animal that is ‘crying’,” she recalls.

It was when she moved from Hullugho Division to Masalani, that she opened the floodgates for other women to join a hitherto male territory.

For five years now Mariam Abdi, 35, has been in the business and she enjoys every bit of it. “We fled from Sangailu Division to Masalani town, the district headquarters’ after our livestock got swept by famine,” says Abdi, who went into the business to feed her children.

“My husband was too old to work. The shock of losing his entire stock further resulted in his being bedridden. At first people thought I was crazy. I was tied onto a tree like a mad woman to stop me from ‘embarrassing’ my family,” recalls Abdi.

At first people refused to eat the meat on learning that a woman had slaughtered the animal saying it was ‘haram’ (something that is forbidden by Islamic law).

“The people’s antics did not discourage me because they were the same ones who laughed when my children went to beg for food handouts from them,” notes Abdi.

She shifted her business base to Masalani where curiosity by the cosmopolitan populace played to her advantage in her butchery trade.

“I recorded brisk business, better than my male counterparts. Besides curiosity, my good customer services ensured I maintained clientele,” observes Abdi.

Binto Osman, 22, has been one year in the trade. “It is the hard economic times that pushed me into this male dominated trade. For the past one year, money has been difficult to come by due to drought that rendered our remaining cattle useless,” she says.

“My husband who is a religious teacher doesn’t make much. He encouraged me to join the business to supplement his work which is more or less voluntary,” she explains.

Osman came to Masalani town from Jalish, a far flung village where life was simpler compared to her new settlement where she had to buy everything including firewood, water and food.

“On the first day, it was embarrassing because I could not slaughter. The male butchers poked fun at me for intruding into their domain in the trade. However, the women encouraged me,” she recalls. “The trade earns me KSh400 per slaughter. I slaughter two animals per day. It is not much but it is better than idling at home, while my four children starve,” she says.

Preference

Mariam Ismail Gedi recalls: “When my husband saw me putting three square meals on the table from the slaughter proceeds, he encouraged me to go on.

She adds: “Today he is the one who goes to the market to get me the best goat to slaughter. I now own 27 goats and sheep from the proceeds of meat trade.”

Livestock trader, Ali Hussein Gulwathe, says he prefers selling his animals to women because they pay cash. “Unlike men who take the animals on credit and are poor in paying their debts, women are better customers,” Gulwathe say.

Ali Abdullahi says he has no problem buying meat slaughtered by the women. “It no longer bothers me who slaughtered the meat as long it is halal (legal),” he says.

However, there are those who are concerned and still give the meat slaughtered by the women a wide berth. One of them, Ismail Dubat Walwal says he will never buy meat from an animal slaughtered by a woman.

“Whenever meat is placed before me, I always inquire who slaughtered the animal,” observes Dubat.

“It is an abomination for women to slaughter animals for meat. Women should only handle meat at its final stage in the kitchen and not at the slaughterhouse,” explains Dubat. He adds: “It is a violation of our culture for a Somali woman to engage in an exclusively male business.”

The women said even the local council, which is male dominated is reluctant to issue them with licenses to enable them run the butcheries.

“Some of us were forced to register our business under the names of our husbands. The macho council officers could not imagine a Somali woman running a butchery,” Hilowle says.

“We have on several occasions demanded the council to provide us a separate slaughter house. It is no good mingling with men. We should have some barrier,” Hilowle says.

The women say efforts to get assistance from non-governmental organisations to expand their business have been fruitless. They have also failed to get credit from financial institutions despite applying for loans.

This feature was originally published in the Reject Online issue 45. Download your PDF copy