Being a female aid & development worker - CHALLENGES
07:00, 6 July 2009
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Being a female aid and development worker presents a lot of unique challenges, and I often wonder if male workers are aware of these.Western women are often seen as honorary men when working in the field, and therefore don't always have the same cultural restrictions as local women may have. However, and very unfortunately, foreign women can also be seen by locals and even some of their foreign co-workers as promiscuous because they aren't traveling with a male family member -- and therefore, foreign female aid and development workers often have to be extra careful in how they present themselves and their relationships with male colleagues.
(Here is a blog entry I wrote about my own experience as a female aid worker in Afghanistan, and here's here's another blog entry specifically on harassment)
Local women can have an even tougher time as professionals in aid and development, because they may be seen as defying local customs and even religious laws regarding how women should behave, and local people they encounter through their work may feel they have the right to enforce cultural and religious practices and prevent such women from doing their jobs.
Fatema Begum Labony is from Dhaka, Bangladesh and is working in a research organization. She is the only female member in monitoring and evaluation division of her organization. She recently visited 30 schools in remote areas of Bangladesh for data collection, and sometimes had to stay hotels in the areas she visited. She wrote this blog entry, Being an female(!) evaluator, that I found fascinating.
An excerpt:
"They specially gave me a room beside the office of room service from where hotel staff can monitor my mobility all time. I have to fill up police verification form where I have to write detail about me along with my hair color, skin color etc. They also gave us some special restriction like we couldn't go each others room, we have to come early at night. At the end of the check-in process the manager whispered to my male colleague, 'remember that we have guard in our hotel. They always moves inside hotel'".
Read the entire entry here.
Also check out all the resources at the Eldis Community. It's especially for people working in or researching practices in aid and development, and aside from being difficult to navigate, it's really a great resource.
