The Issue of Kayayes: They Need Our Help.

Even though I come from a very decent family and was born and brought up in the south, each time the issue of kayaye (head potters) dominated news headlines and became the subject of discussion, I always buried my head in shame.

In what ended to be a rib-racking laughter on the floor of Parliament  on February 5, 2014 when the Member of Parliament for Salaga, Alhaji Ibrahim Dey made a claim that, it is difficult to get a young lady to marry in his district because all of them have migrated to the south in search of non-existing greener pastures and ended up as head potters has kept me pondering.

Putting aside the fact that the kayaye trade is a back-breaking job and the reward is uninspiring, the environmental hazards that these ladies are often exposed to, could best be described as modern slavery.

Many of these young ladies are more often exploited by their contractors owing to their vulnerability, with nobody to negotiate on their behalf. They are forced to accept less pay for carrying luggage that exceed their strength and can be injurious to their health. Some even refuse to pay them at all.

Some of these kayayes are subjected to sexual abuse by some unscrupulous persons who see these poor ladies as sex objects, leaving their victims mentally bruised forever. As a result some end up pregnant out of such relationships. They are then forced to raise their children single-handedly and since they can hardly fend for themselves, their children are often poorly raised without any proper education or basic necessities. The society in the long run bears the burden as these children end up as social miscreants.

Kayayes are always among the hardest hit during heavy down pour. They are left at the mercy of the weather because most of them sleep in the open or dwell in make-shift structures which are normally flooded or pulled down during such heavy storms. Not only does their business slow down during rainy seasons but they are robbed or swindled off the little monies they have managed to save from their sweat.

Over the years successive governments and other Non-Governmental Organisations have paid lip service by promising various policy interventions and programmes with the hope of ameliorating or totally stopping the exodus of young ladies from the north to the south.

During the 2012 electioneering campaigns, the New Patriotic Party led by its flagbearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo promised to provide accommodation or if you like housing for head potters. In my candid opinion this was rather going to serve as a conduit for attracting more gullible young ladies to migrate to the south, after all, they would get free accommodation.

The National Democratic Congress on the other hand introduced the Savanna Accelerated Authority which was or is designed to give employable skills to young people and introduced modules such as the guinea fowl project, the afforestation project, women in dress making and shea nut processing among others which were aimed  at creating employment for people in the three northern regions and also bridge the developmental gap between the north and the south.

But irrespective of how laudable this initiative is, our own people who were put in charge of these projects turned themselves into blood-sucking vampires and looted away monies that would have led to the successful reduction in poverty and unemployment amongst the youth in those regions.

But first before any government or organisation attempts to stop the exodus of young ladies from the north to the south, proper appraisal or diagnoses should be done to identify the root causes of such migration.

As a distant spectator, it is clear that there are limited job opportunities in most rural areas in the three Northern Regions  especially jobs designed for women. Most married women depend solely on their husbands for everything, but these husbands who are predominantly peasant farmers are also seriously affected by the unreliable rainfall pattern. These puts many households in a vicious cycle of poverty.

To worsen the case, religion and cultural practices permit men to marry more than one wife which results in the birth of many children who are uncared for. These children are denied of their basic rights to education and when they are old, their only perception of survival is to travel down south.

Even though formal education started one hundred years before it was extended to the north, the three northern regions compete well in terms of the finest brains in this country and have produced brains such as the 3rd republican president of Ghana, Dr Hilla Liman, Ex-veep under the Kufour regime, Alhaji Aliu Mahama of blessed memory, Mohammed Ibn Chambers, Secretary-General of the African, Carribean and Pacific Group of States, Emmanuel Bombande,  Co-founder and the Executive Director of the West Africa Network for Peace Building(WANEP) and even the current number one gentleman of the land, President John Dramani Mahama, an indication of the huge potential in terms of human resource the country has. Yet, with all these fine brains,  the percentage of children who get  the opportunity to education in the three northern regions still leaves much to be desired.

For a holistic solution to the kayaye menace, government must consider tackling the problem from the root. Measures should be put in place to improve the economic standards of the people living in the three Northern Regions. Female child education must be prioritized as it is the only way to prevent future young girls from engaging in this kayaye trade. Let's help to end this modern day slavery.

Writer: Abdul-Karim Mohammed Awaf.
University of Cape Coast
Abdulkarimmohammedawaf.blogspot.com