In Ethiopia, women have great roles in their families well being and betterment. They have also been playing key roles in the sovereignty of the nation.
However, they were mistreated had no economic right. They were forced and limited to household activities for centuries in the previous political systems of the country.
As a result, they have been advocating and fighting for their human and democratic rights for over a century through different means. They have respected their rights and equalities in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’s Constitution. It made all human kind equal before the law and enabled women to have the right to have right to ownership of property and accumulate property.
As well, the current government of Ethiopia has mainstreamed gender equality and reinforcement of women’s human and democratic rights. On the other hand, they are not fully out modeled though the government is working to its maximum effort.
Since the nation is still striving for women’s holistic participation in sustaining the country’s economic development, it is essential to introduce to the society the outperforming model women.
Zemzem Siraj is one of the Ethiopian women with an exemplary story success. She was born in Afar State, around Amibara. As it’s a common fact of most of the women in the country, she was born in patriarchal family where her father was the only breadwinner of the family. She has a brother and sisters who were sent to school with her.
She has strong love and dedication to learning. She dreamed to go far on this way. Zemzem said, “Even though I was among the top students learning with high degree of commitment and love when I reached grade seven at the age of twelve, I was forced to stop my education.” And she said that it was the starting point of the complexity of her life.
Her father died and the family was exposed to so many miserable situations. Then she has tried to come up with the only possible solution she found. That was to quit her beloved education and to replace her father’s position to help her siblings to learn. She did it and started to search for job that enabled her to earn money.
Fortunately, there was an investment company that worked on cotton production whose owner had relationship with her father. After series of troublesome, she got to be hired as runner in the farming office with 150 ET Birr monthly salary. Working for years in this way, she managed to learn typing just by observing the company’s secretary. Then when the owner saw that she could type very well, he hired her with better salary as a secretary.
In this way, she worked until her age of nineteen. Even until this time she had a plan to continue her education more than anything. However she couldn’t resist any more the threat coming from many boys. Even she was facing repetitive warning of abduction. At this time she realized that it was must to be with someone, which means she had to marry.
Then she married and said, “He was kind and ethical; didn’t chew chat as the culture around there. Therefore, I decided to marry him.”
In 2013, when Amibara Agricultural Research Institute started to introduce the possibility of wheat farming in the area, she was among the first and very few people to accept and try it.
“It was not easy only to start the farming but also to accept the idea. Our area is dry and sunny; it is lowland. We haven’t ever seen any kind of farming without cotton in our area before that. In addition, it requires huge investment of money and manpower.” she explained.
Her challenge was not easy to continue with wheat farming. Her husband was not interested to farm except cotton. In addition to his disinterest in wheat farming, he was not convinced with its profitability. For that reason, she was forced to continue only with her commitment and effort.
She further said, “The effort it required was not easy. We relied on irrigation water. The watering is very tough by itself. We watered at night. Besides, there were dangerous animals like rhinos that can destroy my six hectare wheat within a night. Therefore, I left my home and started living in my farming in the field for three consecutive months.”
Despite of all these challenges, the farming was rewarding and she got good income in hundreds of thousands of Birr.
Though she liked the wheat farming even more than cotton farming, she couldn’t repeat it in the next three consecutive years. She said that her second son’s sickness obstacle her efforts.
He suffered for three years from broken leg while playing foot ball. “Because I had money thanks to wheat, I made all my best and took him to the best medical treatments. I was not at my home throughout the years. We were busy of frequent travel to Addis Ababa and Adama for the kid’s medication.”
After years, she returned to wheat farming for the second time in 2017. “Life will continue I should live for my rest of children and my brother and sisters who are now leading better life.” she said.
After few days, she will harvest her wheat which she would which means only about twenty days are left to harvest. Beside this, she was fattening about thirty cattle.
Finally, she believes that women can do whatever is expected from a human being. However, she said that the society and the cultural aspects towards women need to be improved. And women need to have interest to enhance the society’s awareness and need to be committed and courageous to win life.