collection by the local governments. This represents the role of women street vendors and how
they contribute to the overall economy.

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Annet Kyomuhendo lives in Nyendo, Masaka Uganda with her five (5) children.
She started vending in 2010, selling perfumes, head cover clothes and bed sheets
beside the main road to the city centre in Masaka City. Her daily income is UGX
35,000 which is equivalent to $10 US Dollars. Annet supports her household
through paying her children’s school and university fees, food, rent, electricity
among other responsibilities – especially with her husband being sick.
Annet pays UGX 5000 in taxes per day despite the local government considering
her work as non-registered business trade. During the tenure of her work, she
has suffered violations to her rights, physical assaults and harassment by the
police and government law enforcement.

Judith Namanya is a vendor in Mbarara City Western Uganda. Judith
struggles as a street vendor and must leave home to purchase goods
before 6:00am every day, return to the marketplace in a distant central
area by 10:00am, and navigate the spatial-inequality that comes with
this sort of informal work. Judith says working this way day in and day
out is daunting, emotionally draining, and physically exhausting,
however she cites the material and social support she and other
vendors provide one another in the form of resource sharing and
protected selling space, as a source of strength.

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Addressing Challenges of Women Street Vendors in Uganda

Although the women street vendors pay their taxes daily, the local governments have not been
supportive at all in ensuring a safe environment for these women who frequently meet challenges
not limited to destruction of property, confiscation of their goods and street gang battery. These
women work in a dismal environment with high risk to car accidents and health issues due to
limited or no access to basic health and hygiene facilities. Aside from their economic challenges,
they are also faced with domestic challenges that come as a result of their long absence from
home. These challenges include impending marriage separations and break-ups and maltreatment
from their spouses. There is no legal protection offered to the women street vendors in Uganda.
Though, the Local government provides various licenses, street vending business is not included
thus being seen as an illegal business. The question then, is why the local governments continues
to collect tax from them. The women street vendors have no access to finance like loans through
formal financial institutions like banks – leaving them the tasking, traditional way to borrow
from their relatives and families.

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can be put in place to address the information needs barriers. Through a qualitative exploratory
research design, data was collected using interviews and observation, and analyzed using content
analysis method. The findings from the study revealed that the most commonly needed
information by women vendors was on sources of funding, saving, land and business
opportunities. Women vendors revealed that their major sources of information is use of mobile
phones, followed by radios, and suppliers of products for vending which featured both as an
information need and information source. Women vendors noted that barriers that limit them
include accessing information including language barrier; lack of airtime; unreliable information;
lack of information infrastructure and communication challenges between them and the local
authorities. The study came up with several recommendations for policy makers including need
to recognise women market vendors and their inclusion in urban development planning processes
by government, provision of relevant training particularly on information access and business
management and repackaging and advocacy and networking, dissemination of information on
the rights of women vendors through channels like radios and televisions.

The post A study on information Needs of Women Market Vendors in Uganda first appeared on WOMEN VENDORS NETWORK.

Every woman has the power to transform her Community. When
women work together, we have the power to create a better world for
all of us.
Yet women vendors are usually silenced, ignored, and undervalued
and are still excluded from the decisions that affect them, their
families and communities.

Women’s empowerment is the process of empowering women. It may be defined in several ways, including accepting women’s viewpoints or making an effort to seek them, raising the status of women through education, awareness, literacy, and training.

Women’s empowerment and promoting women’s rights have emerged as a part of a major global movement and is continuing to break new ground in recent years. Days like International Women’s Empowerment Day are also gaining momentum.

But despite a great deal of progress, women and girls continue to face discrimination and violence in every part of the world.

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