The African Market Woman

Photo credit: Public Domain

The African market women though hardly recognized in any mainstream news, is a hidden yet a vital force in the economies of African nations. These women are not just market women, they are entrepreneurs, most of whom are working mothers juggling their businesses with family lives, raising children at the same time. Many are the economic lifelines of their families who help their spouses make ends meet. They feed and clothe their children, and pay their school fees when their husbands are dealing with long periods of unpaid salaries. Some are widows who support their families solely from their market produce and other products earnings .

Bessie House-Midamba and Felix K. Ekechi synopsis of their book, “African Market Women and Economic Power: The Role of Women in African Economic Development, reads: “An interdisciplinary study of market women from all parts of Africa shows how, from historical times to the present, African women have used the economic power they have derived from market activities and commercial enterprises to improve their social and political status in a man's world. They used their wealth in pre-colonial times to obtain titles and even chieftainship…”

Even with the incessant fluctuations in the economies of African countries, the average African Woman continues to strive against all odds to sustain her market business, no matter how small or big, in order to continue to supplement her family’s income, or solely support her family in dire financial circumstances.

SitiTalk salutes African market women in sub-Saharan Africa and indeed in the whole of the African continent.