Palm Oil

One of the top agricultural products of the south is palm oil, also known to the Beninese as red oil. It is common in southern Beninese cuisine, whereas it is rare in the north due to the lack of palm trees. Peanut oil is the oil of preference in the north.

The palm clusters are removed from the trees, then the "berries" are removed from the clusters. Watch out for the thorns!

The palm "berries", ready to be pressed into oil

Oil packaged in a recycled plastic container. Time to make some beans!

Women's Rights in Benin (Part III)

The final installment on women's rights:

Marriage

By law:

Forced marriage is illegal. A woman has the right to choose her own husband. If she is married before she turns 18, the marriage is considered to be a forced marriage, whether or not she gave her consent.

Furthermore, polygamous marriages are not allowed under Beninese law.

In practice:

I do not have a clear idea of how many women are forced into marriage in Sonsoro, but it is common in Benin. Many women, however, are married before age 18. For example, last summer, my 40-something-year-old colleague took a 17-year-old wife (who is in sixth grade), supposedly with her consent after the parents proposed the marriage. While such illegal marriages are common in my area, complaints about such marriages are rare.

As for polygamy, it is the norm rather than the exception in my area. However, it is exceptionally rare for a couple, especially in Sonsoro, to have a state-recognized marriage. Most marriages are religious or simply traditional.

Children

By law:

Women have a right to birth control, and the government encourages health centers to discuss family planning. Previously, abortion was only allowed in the case of rape, incest, or danger to the mother or child and only when the need had been certified by the courts. Now, abortion is illegal in all cases.

In practice:

In Sonsoro, our health center only does about 5% of the family planning consultations the government expects us to do. The health center will not sell or administer birth control to a woman without her husband's consent. Husbands rarely allow their wives to be on birth control because they believe that only the fear of pregnancy keeps their wives faithful to them. Also, children are considered a man's wealth, so he has an incentive to produce a large family.

One case that struck me was when a woman came to our health center with her husband to have a pregnancy test. She had a young baby on her back and the pregnancy test was positive. I asked the nursing assistant if she was going to talk to the couple about birth control since they were having children so close together (we generally recommend birth spacing of 2-3 years between children). The nursing assistant explained that the husband refused to put his wife on birth control and wanted her to get an abortion. He would rather abort unwanted pregnancies than allow his wife to take birth control.

On the subject of abortion, some middle school teachers estimated yesterday that at least a third of their female students had had an abortion at some point. Since abortion is illegal, these clandestine abortions are extremely dangerous.

As for child custody in the case of divorce, the traditional practice is that the man gets custody and the children will be raised by one of his other wives. Therefore, when a woman wants to escape an abusive relationship, she may have to choose to sacrifice her children.

Female Genital Mutilation

By law:

Female genital mutilation is illegal in Benin.

In practice:

Female genital mutilation still exists in certain parts of Benin, particularly the northwest. I have never heard of it being practiced in Sonsoro, but one of my work partners pointed out the tree under which it used to be done. He said it was very common 20 years ago but that he no longer hears of it being practiced in Sonsoro. In all of Benin, 30-50% of women have been subjected to female genital mutilation, according to one estimate.

Women's Rights in Benin (Part II)

Today I was recruited to present on sexual harassment and teen pregnancy at a middle school event on Thursday. That invitation is the perfect segue into some of the other women's rights issues I wanted to describe on this blog.

Here are a few more examples of how women's rights differ by law and in practice:

Sexual Harassment

By law:

Sexual harassment is forbidden under Beninese law. However, it is only recognized in the case of a hierarchical difference (teacher and student, boss and employee, etc). Under Beninese law, there is no such thing as sexual harassment of your equal (eg, between colleagues) because it is considered normal behavior. Furthermore, Beninese law considers that only men can be perpetrators and only women can be victims of sexual harassment.

In practice:

Sexual harassment is rampant and generally tolerated. Even if a sexual harassment case was brought before the courts, the burden of proof required is so high that prosecution is nearly impossible. In any case, few Beninese women would dare make an official complaint about sexual harassment.

A common example of sexual harassment is between male teachers and female students in middle schools. Many teachers pressure their female students to have sex with them, sometimes even threatening to lower their grades if they refuse. It is not uncommon for a female student to drop out of school because she has been impregnated by a teacher. I have even observed a 5^th grade teacher asking four of his female students to kiss him.

Middle school teachers, however, complain that their female students encourage their teachers to sleep with them by wearing tight clothing, batting their eyes, and coming to their houses after dark. The middle school even has a wall mural (financed by the Netherlands) to tell female students not to tempt their teachers. There is no wall mural to tell teachers not to sleep with their students.

Rape

By law:

Any non-consensual sex is considered rape, even within a marriage. Beninese law only recognizes rape when the woman is the victim and the man is the perpetrator. All sex when the woman is under 18 is considered rape, even if her sexual partner is also a minor. Penalties are more severe for rape when the victim is under the age of 16.

In practice:

It is widely accepted that nearly all girls in Sonsoro have sex before age 18 (often for financial reasons), so technically, nearly every Sonsoro girl has been raped. When my colleague consummated his marriage with his 17-year-old wife, according to Beninese law, he was raping her.

The typical Beninese person, male or female, does not believe there is such a thing as marital rape. It is considered an obligation of marriage that the wife will have sex with her husband whenever he wants it, whether or not she does. When I attended my host sister's wedding in Dangbo, the pastor even endorsed marital rape, advising the new couple that one of the secrets to a happy marriage was to never refuse sex to your spouse.

Women's Rights in Benin (Part I)

I am back in the north after a week of training in the south. One of our training sessions addressed the rights of Beninese women by law and in practice. I knew from my experience in village that Beninese women are subservient to men, but I had been unaware of how well-protected Beninese women are under Beninese law. However, the law is entirely unenforced up north.

Here are some examples of women's rights by law and in practice:

Education

By law:

School is not mandatory in Benin, but to promote girls' education, the government pays the school fees for all girls up through 8^th grade. In the case of male students, families are expected to pay the school fees themselves.

In practice:

While I have not observed a stark difference in the number of boys and girls in primary school, male students far outweigh female students in secondary school. According to the local middle school principal, the number one reason female students drop out is pregnancy. Often, girls have sex for financial reasons: they receive money (or gifts) from their sexual partners that allows them to buy food, clothing, and phone credit.

As for school fees, the government's contribution only covers a portion of the cost of attending school. Girls still have to pay money to the school for a separate fee, buy school supplies, and purchase school uniforms.

Work

By law:

Essentially all areas of employment are open to both men and women.

In practice:

I have never seen a woman's profession listed in our health records as anything other than housewife. Most women limit themselves to fieldwork, to making goods to be sold at the market, or to selling food or goods at the market. A woman with grander plans will become a hairdresser or seamstress after completing an apprenticeship.

For an educated woman in the north, options are extremely limited. Her best bet is at the health center, where women are preferred in the maternity unit. A few women have made it into teaching. However, these educated positions are often occupied by southerners, which may be a reflection on how few women are educated in the north. Our nurse at the health center is from the south, and the only female school principal in Sonsoro is also from the south. As for school teachers, I have only met one female teacher out of the 30 or so teachers I have met.

One disadvantage of having so few employment opportunities for educated women is that many women enter the health field only because they want a good job. They are not drawn to nursing out of passion, and they are apathetic about the health of their communities, especially since they are rarely assigned to their hometown. Such health professionals do the strict minimum as required by the government and refuse to make any additional effort to improve the health of their communities.

I still have a lot more to write on the subject of women's rights, so I will post more in a subsequent blog post.

Flora and Fauna of Benin: The Cashew Tree

Sure, you've eaten cashews before, but do you have any idea where those cashews come from? Maybe from Benin! Cashews are one of Benin's top exports, so cashew trees are abundant here. By February, the trees are full of bright red or yellow cashew apples, a juicy fruit that is abundant in Beninese markets at that time of year.

Cashews, however, are nowhere to be seen. Besides being exorbitantly expensive for the typical Beninese budget, they are generally processed outside of the country. Part of the processing entails removing the toxic shell that encloses the cashew nut. Much, if not most, of Beninese cashew nuts are sent to India for processing. The processed nuts are then either consumed in India, where cashews are commonly used in cooking, or shipped to North America or Europe to be sold. Only recently, some Americans opened a cashew processing plant in Benin. However, this plant produces inferior red cashews, not the white cashews we are all used to eating.


The next time you are enjoying a handful of cashews, think of the other cashew tree product that you are missing: cashew apples. Want to try some? Just hop a flight to Benin next winter. I am sure you wouldn't mind escaping the cold.

Cashew apples

A cashew tree. Look closely and you can see the red cashew apples.

What's in a Name?: Twins

While I talked about Bariba naming practices in an earlier post, I failed to mention an interesting subset: twins.

In Bariba culture, the naming of twins is automatic based on age and birth order. If both twins are girls, the first out of the womb will be named Assana, and the second will be Oussena. For boys, the names are Alassane and Ousseni. If the gender of the twins is mixed, the children are named accordingly: Assana and Ousseni if the girl comes first, or Alassane and Oussena if the boy is the first out. There are even special names for the next child who is born after a set of twins. If it is a girl, her name is Gado.

The south has the same practice of giving a specific name to the first child born after twins. However, the naming of twins themselves is different. In many families, boy-girl twins are given matching names. For instance, the twins in my Dangbo host family were named Damien and Damienne. In another host family, the twins were named Benjamin and Benjamina. Siblings of the twins will call their male twin brother Freaho and the girl twin will be called Seaho (forgive the spellings... I'm trying to write phonetically).

If you are twins, you had better hope you get along! Same gender twins, at least in the north, will be dressed alike from birth. Even Assana, a friend of mine in her 20s, says she still wears matching clothes with her sister whenever her sister is in town.

Now before I close this post about twins, let me share a story about my one experience with triplets in Sonsoro. A set of six-week-old triplets came in for vaccination, and I had my colleague counsel the mother after the babies came up as underweight on the scale. I was given one baby to hold, but before the mother left, I had to take a moment to hold each of the other two babies. My colleague explained that in local tradition, you can never hold just one of a set of twins or triplets. If you do so, it is thought that the baby who was not held will get jealous and then get sick. To avoid this jealousy and illness, if you hold one twin or triplet, you must hold the other(s).

Flora and Fauna of Benin: The Lorax Tree (part 2)

Remember that earlier post about the tree whose seed pods looked like they came straight out of a Dr. Seuss book? Well, over the last few months, that tree has transformed. A few weeks ago, those seed pods shed most of their seeds and turned into this:

With time, some of those little stragglers expand and eventually transform into these large pods:

Apparently, the insides of those pods are valuable. Whenever I succeed in obtaining one of them, I'll open it up and give you a look!