dominated by urban poor women. When asked about the safety of women street vendors, a representative from the Khartoum Employment Office stated that the law does not recognize this as employment as it is unregistered. Khartoum’s legal framework in concert with other practices, illustrates the ways in which marginalized women are both severely exposed and invisible to the eyes of the law. In Greater Khartoum, there is a link between formal law, violence and material realities in relation to gender, class and ethnicity. Considering this, the following section will examine how the abovementioned landscape has shaped women’s relationship to non-traditional employment with focus given to the findings of SIHA’s Breaking Gender Stereotypes Project.
BACKGROUND ON BGS SIHA’s extended work with women street vendors provides unique access to the issues facing these women. The Head of the Women’s Cooperative Union (union for women tea-sellers) Awadia Mahmoud Kuku stated:
“We were struggling from the police raids, especially the younger women tea-sellers who were trying to get an education and make a living at the same time. We came to SIHA with our problem and stated that we wanted a solution to help elevate urban poor working class women from their precarious employment and stop their exposure to state violence. We were particularly excited about vocational training since it provided women with a skill. We did not want the young women to live the harsh realities we lived; the loss of our possessions, the prison cells and the violation of our bodies.”17
Throughout the years of the former regime, many of Sudan’s vocational education institutions deteriorated due to lack of funding and poor management. Teachers frequently went on strike because of salary cuts and delays in payments.18 In recognizing its importance and the potential value of reviving vocational education training for women, SIHA, in collaboration with other civil society actors namely Al Taadood, Nuwayda, Niwa, SPCR, Women’s Union Association (made up of 13 cooperations), SDA, SORD, Babiker Badri Cooperative, Diar, and other self help organizations, developed the Breaking Gender Stereotypes Initiative (BGS). This is part of SIHA’s larger program of empowering women from displaced and urban poor backgrounds in Greater Khartoum. In the initial phase of the project, SIHA’s partners gathered statistics on the
17
FGD, Khartoum, SIHA Partners, January 23rd 2020
18
FGD, Vocational Training Staff, Khartoum January 7th 2020
Negotiating Space: Sudanese Women’s access to Vocational Education & Employment
Page No. 13
