15th October is the World International Day of Rural Women. It is celebrated annually to highlight the position of rural women, their involvement in society matters and challenges they face.
Rural women are local women in rural areas that deal with environmental issues, natural resources and sustainable agricultural management, in order to ensure improved community and regional development. 2019’s theme is Rural Women and Girls Building Climate Resilience.
Rural women play a key role in the society whereby they practice agriculture that caters for food security, by planting different crops on their own and ensuring that the family does not starve or lack something to eat.
Most rural women participate in different activities to fend for the family like sand harvesting, making bricks, and preparing pieces of land for planting. More so, all these activities are unpaid.
Rural women do a lot to ensure that the family is comfortable; taking care of children back at home, fetching water where some trek long distance to look for water as it is a major problem in most rural areas where there is no piped water as they depend on springs as the main source of water.
Some rural women work extra hard to ensure survival of their families for they are left home by their husbands who move to rural areas in search of jobs as they reach there majority of them forget about their families something that compels these rural women look for alternative ways of taking care of children on their own by ensuring that they eat, dress and go to school.
Family planning among rural women is still a challenge where most women have a notion of if they don’t give birth to many children their husbands might marry other wives or they will be charged harshly by the society. This leads to health problems that interfere with their daily activities.
Rural women face challenges among them limited access to education, health care, lack of information and lack of proper tools and equipment in undertaking their duties.
However, rural women nowadays are being identified by the national government by being given a chance to lead as village elders, area chiefs and their assistants, if this trend continues poverty will be eradicated in rural areas since they will have exposure that will enable them teach their fellow women on how they should carry out their duties more so farm chores.
Therefore, empowering rural women, the society will benefit a lot for it depends most on them as key agents of development.