Nimule border: Where women combat stereotypes to eke living

It is a beehive of activity, as women arrive every day in droves at the Uganda–South Sudan border crossing at Nimule, in Magwi County. Some are wearing colourful kitenge dresses and others don simple trousers to allow them to push through their daily chores. They queue, often for hours, in the oppressive heat, and dust, waiting for customs officials to inspect their documents, hopefully allowing them to passage to buy and sell goods. They are women, taking their chances as cross-border traders.

Aryemo Florence is one of a growing number of South Sudanese women working in the cross-border trade business. She makes and sells, herbal soap, jellies, handmade shoes, and shea butter, and she has been competing with her male counterparts for three years.

She asked for equal policies and regulations to help make it easier for women engaged in cross-border trade.

“If women do not have the necessary documents, they say give us something so that we can release your goods.  Men who are making business have enough money on them but for us women, we are still trying,” Aryemo laments.

“Sometimes you may arrive at the border when you have exhausted all the money for clearance and even money to bribe your way out.”

Faridah Tumusiime is a Ugandan businesswoman living in Juba, who has been working in the informal cross-border trade industry in East Africa, for six years. She partners with four other women from Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan and Tanzania to reduce the transport costs.

“We hire one lorry together, pack our goods and then go to Juba,” she says

Sacrifices made

Faridah often export rice, beans, posho, onions, and eggs, from Uganda to sell in South Sudan. “I am not ashamed to work, I don’t sit at home and keep quiet.  Nowadays, you can achieve something if you are working,” she says while feeling passionate about her business as a cross-border trader.

Recent studies show that businesswomen like Faridah and Aryemo do cross-border trade more regularly because they buy smaller amounts of merchandise.

 Aryemo says, “If we were to have enough capital, that would help us to purchase in bulk and limit our movements to at least once or twice a month and not weekly.”

According to UNDP statistics, and TradeMark East Africa, an organisation that promotes cross-border trade, women are estimated to account for 70 to 75 per cent of informal cross-border trade in the sub-Saharan region between South Sudan and Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

With an average of 200 women per month entering the business, three cross-border associations have been formed to meet the need. However, decreasing profits, coupled with difficulties in obtaining loans to boost their businesses, makes it harder for women to rely on informal cross-border trading for their livelihoods.

Finella Lams is the technical advisor for South Sudan Women Entrepreneur Association, a women’s group working to educate those involved in cross-border trade. She says most of the women did not know the simplified trade regimes for doing business across borders.

“For example any woman crossing at one of the three borders – Nimule – Nadapal or Kaya, if you are carrying goods less than $2,000, you are not supposed to pay anything. The tax authorities are supposed to clear you and you move with your goods.”  Yet women get manipulated even by “our own people” she said.

Empowering the economic future of women in cross-border trade requires access to finance, but without collateral security, banks do not make that easy. 

“We need capital,” Ayemo says, “but there is no way to get loans, you have to fight to get capital and if you do not have capital, that is a problem.”  Sometimes loan sharks are ready to provide money to these women, but not without heavy interest charges.

Beyond the financial challenges, women cross-border traders are stereotyped and face verbal insults from men who call them names.

“We are called sharamuta” in Arabic meaning prostitute, Faridah says. “If you are a woman, the police call you names. They say you are a widow, that’s why you are working for yourself, you are a prostitute, that’s why you are moving long-distance to do business here.”

‘‘Even the drivers they hire to carry their goods, often expect the women to provide sex with them to the men,” she adds.

“They tell us the fuel is not there, you all come down.  He said, you give me this, you give me that, and he demanded sex by force, and a friend of mine once tested positive for AIDS. If you refuse, that man (driver) will not come back to take you,” Faridah laments furiously.

Yet, despite the discrimination by banks and the “tricksters and loan sharks” waiting to cheat them at the border, these women are determined to succeed.

Aryemo says: ‘‘Now that we are part of the East African Community, I hope that cross-border trade for women will become easier and that women will be able to access finance, open factories, train, hire other women and travel freely and bring our products into the country without paying a single bribe. That would be the nicest gift any woman participating in cross-border trading could receive.”

She says other women find cross-border trading hard work because the money they make goes to support her family and pay school fees for her six children. 

“When I came to South Sudan, she said, I didn’t have anything, but now my first daughter is going to attend Primary six and the other two in Primary Four and one is still a baby. We eat well, we have a good life. I want to get a house then I go back with my kids and I settle at my village. That’s my dream.”

We thank the African Union (AU) and African Women in the Media (AWIM) for their help in making this report possible.