By Mustapha Jarju
Women vendors at the Serrekunda market have called for government support to ease the suffering they are encountering in the markets.
They raised their voices with so many complaints considering the fact that they are the majority voters in elections to decide which candidate represents them in leadership. They want the government to look on to the women by giving them their rights with support due to the difficulties they encounter in the markets.
Drammeh Kassama, a resident of Talinding Koloban who sells onion and lime at the Serekunda market reached out to this medium to complain that women are suffering a lot in the market as they are trying to make a better life for themselves and their families when it comes to the business they are engaging in for their survival.
She said women are suffering as they are neglected by the authorities without any concern for them. “Women are the ones that provide for the family, feed the children, pay their school fees, and do many other things for them, if we come here to struggle to make that possible to make the future of our children productive by giving them launch and paying their school fees it is really a heavy burden on us,” she expressed.
With the current price increments, she said the products they sell are much more expensive this has made it difficult for them to make profits after sales.
According to her a bag of imported onion costs D800 and the one grown here costs D1,300 to D1,500.
“The survival and other family needs cannot be stopped, and coming to the market, at the end you don’t know what to go home with is except frustration is really painful. What I have seen in terms of hardship in the market this year, I have never experienced such since I started business as a vendor several years ago, but I understand it is not only in the market and there is hardship in every sector of the country”, the old woman expressed in her sad tune.