When reading about women in pastoral societies it is common to find reference to their marginalised roles, their hardship, their oppression and their lack of power as opposed to men’s domination, men’s ownership, men’s power and associated patriarchal relations.
However, pastoral women are extremely strong and powerful people. Despite the many challenges women face, they do find ways to ensure that the household’s basic needs are met; they do find ways to access resources and within the pastoral system do have ‘rights’ to ownership and use of many of them; and they do find ways to get their voices heard. This report focuses on pastoralist women from pastoral communities across the world producing a global good practice study on pastoralist women’s empowerment.
A simplified Table of Contents follows: (i) Introduction to empowerment; (ii) Basic Survival: The Power to Support Oneself and One’s Family; (iii) Entitlements and Access to Resources: Introduction; (iv) Livestock; (v) Education; (vi) Income Generation; (vii) Natural Resources; (viii) Making Change Happen: Collective Action – Women’s Networks and Organisation; (ix) Participation: the Power of Choice and Voice; (x)Control in Personal and Public Domains; (xi) The Impact of Sedentarisation; (xii) Principle of "Good Practice".
You can download this publication from the IUCN website.
