Women – Number 1 Victims Of Gambia’s Military Dictatorship
By Max
Dictator Yayah Jammeh’s regime false propaganda and misinformation about Gambian women’s advancement under his regime is no longer effective. It is indeed erroneous and outright false to state that women are the biggest beneficiaries of this regime in the area of political empowerment, social legislation and educational advancement as the regime and its opportunists want us to believe. The few opportunists women in the regime who have mortgaged their children’s future are the ones enjoying while majority of Gambian women are struggling economically to put food on the table, pay school fees for their children and to pay costly medical bills in our deplorable healthcare system.
Female Gardeners in every part of the country are competing with Dictator Jammeh at the local markets throughout the country. Evidence of such unfair and disadvantage business practice can be found in Serekunda market where women are constantly complaining about president Jammeh’s dominance of the market with his farm produce. rom his countless farms across the country. Current deteriorating economic system has affected women more than any demographic in the Gambia. This is because women bear greatest burden of providing for their families both in the rural areas as well as urban centers. In rural areas women engage in horticulture or village gardening during dry seasons to provide supplemental income for their families while those in urban centers engage in small businesses in various markets. Gambian women today are living and experiencing worst economic condition than never before. Women are the most productive contributors to the Gambian economy and this has been demonstrated in areas of agricutural productivity, small business and entrepreneurship. This contributions does not translate to better economic conditions for women because of bad economic policies and the regime’s total disregard towellbeing of Gambian people. These productive bases of our economy are nearly totally collapsing today. It is therefore fallacious and outright dishonest to state that Gambian women are tje biggest beneficiaries of this regime when the majority of biggest the citizens are worst off under this regime except those who enjoy preferential treatment in securing high paying jobs due to nepotism and loyalty. In fact, Gambian women are the number one victim of this regime because of poor economic growth, corrupt mercenary judiciary system and overall disastrous social injustices and political oppression. The impact of failed economic policies, corrupt mercenary judiciary system and political witch hunt can be classified as economic destruction of families, psychologically terrorising families’ well being and destruction of fundamental fabric of society.
Impunity and total disregard for rule of laws becomes daily life as evidence by countless disappearances, murder, unlawful arrest, mismanagement and absolute corruption.
In terms of Incompetent, corrupt and mercenary judiciary system in the country, more women are now heading households because of massive illegal imprisonment, politically motivated detention and other constitutional violations of rights of husbands, uncles and brothers. Family dynamic and relationship becomes severely affected. Children grew up without fathers at home. Fatherly love and care are non-existence in the family homes. Wives become sole breadwinners and the support system from distance relatives hardly comes by because of fear of association with the victims to avoid collective punishment which the regime is known for. Today majority of Jammeh’s victims and their families are isolated socially by neighbors and disassociated by so-called friends during their illegal detention, imprisonment and disappearances.
The psychological effects of such barbarian system in our country has significant impact on women’s mental health which leads to depression, anxiety, trauma, insomnia and physical suffering resulting from the burden of family care-giving and responsibility.
The impact of the regime’s human rights violations in terms of murder, illegal detention, unfair termination of employment also has enormous economic consequences on families economic well being. The financial hardship of victim’s family or lack of money to pay school fees result to numerous children being drop out of school. All these negative impact on the families also causes significantly huge social problems in terms of drug use, teen pregnancy, back way menace to Europe and other unproductive behaviors which are detriment to the advancement of the families and societal at large. Therefore, the destruction of fundamental fabric of our society (families and young people) becomes the ultimate result of the regime’s dictatorial rule, bad economic policies and corrupt mercenary judiciary system.
From the above analysis, it can therefore be concluded that Gambian women are worst off today than in 1994 when the gang of semi-literate, indiscipline and poorly trained soldiers overthrew democratically elected government.
Ends
max your comments are all authentic, womens are the ones encountering difficulties in the gambia
Thank you yorro . It’s indeed sad state of affairs for our mothers , sisters and Aunts .
Maxs, your article would have been better if you had come up with some statistics on the issue. On the whole this is a good attempt and the opinions expressed are in line with the general feelings of Gambians.
Thanks
Thank you yerro for the feedback , hopefully next time statistics will be included . You are right about general feelings of Gambians . The only people who may not accept this fact are jammeh , his cronies and the families. Maybe Bax and Dida may not agree with this view or article .
The Jammeh administration’s poor handling of state matters, especially its poor human rights records, no doubt, compounded the economic and social hardships of The Gambian people (especially the women), but the hard life of the people preceeded the APFPRC/APRC administrations…
The economic and social issues highlighted by Max have been present and felt by a good number of The Gambian population in the first republic, and things were not improving in real terms, when July 22nd happened..
Infact, the widespread support and acceptance the military junta received was a clear testimony of how the population perceived the Jawara government’s performance at the time… Just to name a few problems we faced in the first republic..
-cost of living was on the high;
-official corruption was an accepted way of life;
-social and public services were almost non existent and where they existed, were poorly delivered;
-drug shortage was the norm in our health system and referrals to costly pharmacies, a daily reality of many patients;
-higher education was unavailable for many hardworking and ambitious students, thus leading to premature termination of education ;
-the burden of basic education was being gradually shifted onto parents, even to the point of providing furniture for their children..
-youth unemployment was very high..(and the list can go on and on)..You don’t need statistics to proof this…If you are old enough, you most definitely experienced these..
So, whilst it is right that we highlight the numerous economic, social and political ills experienced by the nation under the APRC Administration, it is important that we do not lose sight of the fact that the chronic economic malaise of the country have deep rooted origins that can be traced beyond the current and previous regions..
It is rooted in the economic philosophy that the country is made to follow, which unfortunately, is the very philosophy that the main opposition UDP has pledged to follow. No matter how much we perform under this globally enforced economic philosophy, unless we have a lucky break with some kind of valuable natural resource, like oil, we will continue to face the same problems..
Change of government will only change the conditions and circumstances of the new leaders and those connected to them, but very little if anything, for the majority of the people…
Unless we recognise and acknowledge this and find a way to deal with it, we will continue to literally “wander aimlessly in the economic wilderness”, and continue hopelessly waiting for a change of fortunes..
A well written article and very interesting follow-up comments. Both republics have their drawbacks. The first republic witnessed rampant corruption as well as huge economic inequality. Under the second republic, corruption, inequality, human rights abuse and most notably ineffective government institutions have become the order of the day. All of these problems are as a result of ignorance and lack of faith in Allah Subhanah Watahla by the Gambian people. We have allowed these two governments to manipulate us since independence only for the meager benefits we received from politicians.
We can replace one party after another for a century and unless we change our attitudes and become Allah fearing nation, we will continue to be used by one politician after another. It is only when we change our selfish, greedy and cowardice attitude that we can achieve any meaningful development and this is particularly sure of our mothers and sisters.