Illiteracy is high among women and girls in Egypt's rural areas. |
CAIRO, 8 Mar 2006 (IRIN) - Nesma and a group of fellow women
farm workers sit out in the midday sun after a morning of harvesting spinach
leaves from plush green fields in Fayyoum governorate in Lower Egypt, 80kms
south of Cairo.
Living in one-room mud houses with their husbands and
children, they manage to eke out a living on between $0.80 and $1.60 a day each.
None of the women in the group knows how to read, nor do they express
much desire to learn. For them, there is no choice but to passively accept their
circumstances and little point in trying to change their lives.
"Life
goes on, and this is my lot," said Nesma, in her mid 40s. "Even if I were to
learn how to read, would it make a difference? And, even so, do you think my
husband would let me get a job in town, away from him?"
She, like many
rural women, takes chronic poverty and gender-related disadvantages for granted.
"Reading doesn’t make a woman socially acceptable or useful," Nesma said. "Here,
in the villages, we women grow up to marry and have children. That is our role
in life. Anything else is a luxury."
According to the 2005 Human
Development Report (HDR) for Egypt, issued jointly by the UNDP and the Ministry
of Planning and Development, 35 percent of the population cannot read or write,
putting Egypt among the top 10 countries in the world in terms of illiteracy.
The figure is worse for Egypt’s female population, with 45 percent of girls and
women over the age of 15 years-old being illiterate.
Studies repeatedly
note the considerable gender gap, which is in turn exacerbated by regional and
urban-rural gaps. Rural girls and women are, without exception, the worst hit.
While the report indicates marginal improvements over the past decade,
it also stresses: "There remains a gender gap in favour of males." Cultural
constraints, added to additional costs of education and the fact that a child
attending school will be unable to assist in household responsibilities,
contribute to this gap.
Cultural constraints
For rural
women, the problem is doubly difficult to get around. According to the HDR, a
whopping 85 percent of female rural household heads are illiterate.
A
general lack of resources, added to a culture in which rural women's roles are
limited to the domestic sphere and farm work, seriously hampers their access to
education. While male employment has decreased over recent years, opening up
more opportunities for women in the national labour force, rural women still
rarely pursue careers as such.
In the rural areas, early marriages also
contribute to female illiteracy. "Very often, a family will take their daughter
out of school aged 13 or 14," said Nihad Abul-Qumsan, director of the Egyptian
Centre for Women's Rights. "And by the time she's grown up, she'll have
forgotten how to read and write properly."
For other women, trouble
starts at birth. Parents, particularly in impoverished rural areas, are often
loath to register their daughters with the authorities, simply because the
process is often long and difficult. Many parents feel that girls – who aren’t
seen as potential breadwinners – are simply not worth the trouble. "As a result,
many girls grow up without being issued birth certificates or identity cards,"
Abul-Qumsan said.
Technically, these girls and women do not exist. They
are therefore not only unable to attend school, but it also becomes impossible
for them to access public health services and other government subsidies or
apply for regular work.
"These women can neither read nor work nor get
treatment when they're ill," Abul-Qumsan said. "They're poor and marginalised,
and their status as illiterates without legal documentation more often than not
means they will stay that way."
Illiteracy and poverty
In
Egypt, illiteracy not only constitutes a cause for poverty, it also acts as a
disincentive for affected persons to adequately address their situation. An
illiterate person is far less likely to be able to improve his or her lot, say
experts, than someone who can read and write.
"If someone can't read or
write," said Abul-Qumsan, "chances are he or she will not be able to address his
or her problems efficiently or improve his or her financial circumstances."
Potential solutions
For three decades, the Egyptian
government has worked to improve literacy rates. Programmes have been devised
recently specifically targeting illiterate women and working to improve school
enrolment among girls.
The government-run National Council for
Motherhood and Childhood, for instance, runs its own literacy programmes and
sponsors a number of local NGOs which run their own workshops and courses. Among
them is the Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women (ADEW),
which runs literacy classes for women in marginalised areas of Cairo and in
three rural governorates in the Delta, along with programmes devoted to teaching
crafts and rights awareness.
"In addition to running literacy courses,"
said Nashwa Salah, head of ADEW's illiteracy eradication programme, "it's
important to give girls and women incentives to attend."
Increasingly,
NGOs running literacy programmes are working to raise awareness of the immediate
advantages of literacy, which range from better employment opportunities to
greater rights awareness. "It's for this reason that we provide practical
assistance, such as help in dealing with government agencies," Salah stressed.
"We also run leisure programmes that target girls aged between 11 and 20, so
that they feel greater motivation to attend."
Long road ahead
However, both civil society and the government still have a long way
to go before they can expect to see tangible results. Critics say the problem of
female illiteracy is too deeply entrenched for a relatively small number of
programmes to handle. "Unfortunately, many of the programmes and laws in place
are inefficient, despite their diversity," Abul-Qumsan said.
Although
primary schooling is free and legally compulsory for both sexes, for example,
punishments for parents taking their children out of school remain negligible.
"Offending parents are merely charged a fine of $1.60," Abul-Qumsan said.
In addition, there are few programmes working to educate rural women in
particular. The countryside, by virtue of being far away from urban centres,
tends to receive the least attention in terms of social assistance programmes.
"As is the case with every other aspect of their lives," Abul-Qumsan pointed
out, "rural women suffer the most."
"The government must do more to raise
the profile of rural women," Abul-Qumsan added. "Currently, illiteracy rates –
along with all the economic and rights-based problems that go hand in hand with
it – remain unacceptable."
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