The local Ghanaian word is said to have originated from the combination of two individual words from the Hausa and Ga languages-"kaya" and "yei".
"Kaya" simply means load or luggage in Hausa circles whereas "yei"means girls,singular is "yo".
Kayayei is translated however into English as females who carry goods,usually agricultural,other luggages and stuff of people from one destination to another at a fee.They do this by carting the goods on their head in large pans with only a moist-coiled rag,separating the pan from their bare head.
In Ghana,and especially in the major cities,there is the possibility of meeting these girls on any day at market annexes and bus terminals,who would ask to carry your load to your end.
Unlike beggars,disability-struck persons and other derelicts of society,who line up the streets and accost people every step of the way,begging for alms,Kayayei and their activities are a tad more dignifying than the art of street begging.
Far from being stereotypical about the issue,kayayei are predominantly from the three northern regions of Ghana-Upper East,Upper West and the Northern Regions,who come to urban and peri-urban areas,in an attempt to make a living.
For many years,the activity has been seen by these young girls as a better alternative to making a living,than the existing conditions in their home regions.
According to the 2010 Population and Housing Census, more than 50 percent of Ghanaians now live in urban areas.
Part of this increase is due to the migration of women from rural areas. Since the early 1980s, tens of thousands of females in northern Ghana have fled growing rural poverty as their traditional source of employment, rain-fed farming, could no longer sustain them,others an attempt to run away from issues bordering on the culture and religion in their home villages,like forced and early marriages,and the like.
These girls, the majority of whom are of school-going age, escape to cities without knowing where they will live or work, and often ultimately work as kayayei,carrying loads on their heads, and in other menial jobs.
Kayayei (female head porters) are now a distinct urban poor group, mostly operating in and around lorry parks and markets in Ghana's cities,often living in very deplorable environments.
They have become almost a legal set of city dwellers,who go about their kayayei duties with only one thing on their minds,how to make a better living.
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| some kayayei have to endure sleeping in the open in the city |
Due to a myriad of reasons,young females flee the upper regions to the cities.
According to a 2010 survey of Kayayei, conducted by the Ghana Federation of the Urban Poor (GHAFUP), an affiliate of Slum Dwellers International, and Peoples Dialogue on Human Settlements, the majority (58 percent) of 15,000 respondents were engaged in farming prior to their migration.
Those who were engaged in farming felt their earnings from the rain-fed farming activities were woefully inadequate to sustain themselves and their families.Farm owners did we're not willing to pay them equally for the hard work they undertake on their farms as farm hands or porters.
Only 11 percent had attended some school,basic level education,while 13 percent had been idle.
The low school attendance is inconsistent with the spirit and intent of the Ghanaian Constitution which guarantees free compulsory basic education to every child in Ghana. This is especially so in the north, where youth have access to free senior high school education.
Over 90 percent of the survey’s Kayayei were northerners and had migrated without taking full advantage of free education. Of the surveyed Kayayei, 23 percent were 10-17 years old and, thus, in their attempt to escape poverty, they had missed out on education.
Forced marriages,usually as early an age as twelve years,Aisha,a kayayo from sirugu,tells us is a reason she fled her home village.Her parents were compulsorily pressurizing her to marry a thirty five year old man,which she would not kowtow to.
She is just one of the many girls who has migrated to the cities to avoid early marriages.
Because these young girls forced into early marriages are not reproductively mature to bring forth babies,many of them who get pregnant lose their lives during labour,and some develop a condition known as Obstetric and Urogenital fistula.
A condition occasioned as a result of delivery through underdeveloped pelvis,leaving permanent hole in the reproductive system of the female.
It occurs sometimes through delayed labour.A female with this health defect is unable to control passage of urine and stool,because of the fistula (hole) created,an embarrassing phenomenon which can only be done with,by a corrective surgery.
Another group of kayayei lament the reasons why they came to Accra.They were literally outcasts in their home villages because of a slight deformity they had.Maria is eighteen,and has one daughter,she is blind in one eye,a condition she was born with.As a result,her parents neglected her describing her as a bad omen to the family.
No one in her immediate family associated with her for fear of being bewitched.She took charge of matters and came to the city,where she finds herself in the kaya business.
LIVING CONDITIONS AND ARRANGEMENTS
Ghana’s slums and informal settlements provide homes and places of business for these poor female migrants,upon their arrival in the city.Notable among such areas which serve as abode for the kayayei include Old Fadama,Makola,Agbogbloshie,and some Zongo communities.
Because of their poor economic conditions,they have to come to terms with living in makeshift wooden structures with their colleagues and children.The unlucky ones who cannot even afford these makeshift structures put up at lorry parks,underneath footbridges,and at market centers in the evenings,awaiting the break of dawn for another business day.
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| a kayayo in her slum |
But on hindsight,the situation of those who sleep at lorry parks and under footbridges are the more precarious,considering how dangerous it is stay outside in certain parts of the capital at night.
There have always been cases of rape,murder and kidnapping of some of these girls reported often.
Despite these,kayayei are determined to make a better living.
Interestingly,a striking feature at some of these settlements where kayayei predominantly live,is a traditional "children's home" operated by nannies.
Kayayei who have children,leave them with nannies,who keep watch over them at a fee during the day when the need to put body and soul together drives them to the markets under scorching sunny conditions in search for a livelihood.
Despite being an avenue for these nannies to themselves rake in some income,the conditions under which these children are kept are damning.
At one such slum in the capital,Krokoyili in Agbogbloshie,Naadam uses her room to house the kids of kayayo mothers all day until their mothers return.
She charges one cedi per child,one cedi fifty pesewas for two and two cedis for three children,and so and so forth .
A visit to this slum put in my faces the bare issues.Under insanitary conditions,these children are fed,some naked and sitting on the bare floor,others with their noses running like a leaked tap,congested in a room which in itself is untidy.
Even the job Naadaam is required to perform,hardly gets done since she is also busy preparing tuozaafi and palm nut soup for sale in the evenings.She pays little attention to these kids,but gets paid everyday.Can you blame her?)
FAMILY LIFE IN THE CITY
Five out of every eight kayayei you meet in urban Accra,have younger children strapped behind their backs,some with their nose running,others barely wearing anything and others looking jaded and unkempt.
Many many young kayayei once they took the decision to migrate to Accra,inadvertently made the decision to be premature mothers.
While those that are raped at night get pregnant and deliver their babies,others get deceived by men who promise them a better life,sleep with them and run away.
Adiza and Majia are two seventeen year olds,who have a daughter each.They tell me their husbands are in Tamale,leaving the burden of upbringing on these girls alone in the city.Asked whether their husbands sends ten money to cater for their daughters,the response was expected;a big no.
There are however a few,whose boyfriends and husbands live with them in the slums.Those that migrated with their boyfriends live with them.
City family structure of these girls is distorted,since they go to work all day and return home late at night,and then those who have husbands also leave home at night for their 'watchman job'.There's hardly a time when man,woman and children share the moments together in the slums.
Even more serious is their healthcare regimes.With the meager earnings,a visit to the hospital in the city or the healthcare facility is more of a luxury.They prefer instead to purchase analgesics from mobile drug peddlers in the markets where they work,to cure pain and ailments themselves and their children may develop.That,at least is what they can afford.
Rukia has one daughter,her husband is a night-shift informal security personnel at the Makola market.Ever since she had her two year old baby,she has never been to the hospital.She and her husband rely on chemical shops and drug vendors in and around the market for their health needs.
Other girls apparently have protracted husbands back in their home villages,and are on a mission to gather a few cooking utensils to return and enter marriage with these protracted husbands.
Sixteen year old Adamah is a case in point.She is in Accra to engage in head porting activities to generate income for the purchase of some cooking utensils,with which she would enter into marriage with Saddiq back in Tamale.
After hearing her story,all I am asking myself is,whether the whole venture is worthwhile.
INTERESTING ASPECTS OF THEIR CITY LIVES
Despite all their troubles,these Kayayei,most of them,find time to cool off.They sit together usually at night and dance to songs,to banish their fears and worries.A number of them occasionally travel to visit their families,back in the northern regions.
Interestingly,while a few of the girls told us they came to make money,with which they would go back to the home villages to set up a business,others came to gather monies to purchase clothes and shoes in preparation for their marriages up north.
Some come along with older women to the cities who serve as nannies for the children of the busy Kayayei daily.The mothers have to pay a token while they leave for the markets,in order that their under-five children can be taken care of,and fed.
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| click to watch video of kayayei children camped in a home |
The nannies teach the children familiar Arabic songs and poems.
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| scores of kayayei children left in the care of a nanny for a fee |
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| a group of tired kayayei stop for a rest @ this basement |
With time,some of these people, get employed in chop-bars (local restaurants), become trade assistants to market women, act as shop attendants and house helps,which slightly earns them better incomes.
After making quite an amount,a number of the kayayei learn a trade in tailoring,hairdressing,catering.bead-making,among others,after which they establish their own enterprises.
Upon my rounds and upon witnessing life,at first hand of these kayayei in their slum homes,lots of questions lingered on my mind.
Do these kayayei have hope for a better tomorrow ?
For how long will they continue like this in the kaya business?
What will become of their children,who are supposed to be our future leaders?
Notwithstanding all the challenges these females are fazed with upon arrival in the capital,they see light at the end of the tunnel,however dim.
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