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One woman/on a cacao farm in Côte d’Ivoire/describes her typical day. She gets up at 4 a.m./and walks two kilometers to get water/before making breakfast,/cleaning the yard,/and preparing the children for school. Then she walks several kilometers to the field to work,/with her youngest baby strapped to her back/and sometimes with a toddler in tow. Cacao beans grow in pods/about the size of a football,/which she harvests from trees/using a knife attached to a long pole. In the evening,/she returns home,/carrying a heavy basket of cacao pods/on her head,/only to find more work waiting for her.
Women do about 70 percent/of the work on the farms/but receive only about 20 percent/of the income. They must also do all the housework. This unfairness/is due to the country’s patriarchal society,/where men hold power/and make most decisions. Women have no say/about selling the cacao beans,/and their husbands don’t share the money. Women don’t have access to training or financial aid/which could help them lead a better life. There is a very large gender gap.
One woman/on a cacao farm in Côte d’Ivoire/describes her typical day. She gets up at 4 a.m./and walks two kilometers to get water/before making breakfast,/cleaning the yard,/and preparing the children for school. Then she walks several kilometers to the field to work,/with her youngest baby strapped to her back/and sometimes with a toddler in tow. Cacao beans grow in pods/about the size of a football,/which she harvests from trees/using a knife attached to a long pole. In the evening,/she returns home,/carrying a heavy basket of cacao pods/on her head,/only to find more work waiting for her.
Women do about 70 percent/of the work on the farms/but receive only about 20 percent/of the income. They must also do all the housework. This unfairness/is due to the country’s patriarchal society,/where men hold power/and make most decisions. Women have no say/about selling the cacao beans,/and their husbands don’t share the money. Women don’t have access to training or financial aid/which could help them lead a better life. There is a very large gender gap.