Benin

Benin is one of the smaller countries in West Africa and also one of the world's poorest countries, qualifying for debt relief in 2000. Through its high dependency on agricultural export products and falling world market prices, Benin has difficulties escaping the poverty trap. Life in Benin remains mostly rural, and traditions prevail. Many different ethnic groups live in the country, where they settled at different times and migrated from neighboring countries.

With a population of almost 8,500,000 inhabitants, the growth in real output of around 5 percent in the past seven years has been offset by rapid population growth of around 3 percent per year. The economy of Benin remains underdeveloped and dependent on subsistence agriculture, cotton production, and regional trade. Extreme poverty remains endemic and continues to be concentrated in rural areas.

On average, each woman gives birth to more than six children; Benin has one of the highest death rates for children younger than 5 years-estimated by the United Nations Human Development Report to be 98 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Although the constitution provides for equality for women in the political, economic, and social spheres, women experience extensive societal discrimination, especially in rural areas, where they occupy a subordinate role and are responsible for much of the hard labor on subsistence farms. In urban areas, women dominate the trading sector in the open-air markets.

Violence and abuse of women are considered a family matter, even though the government has put some measures into place to protect women against violence through legal sanctions and amendments to the penal code. There is also a great disparity between boys’ and girls’ school enrolment rates. One prominent reason is the custom of vidomegon, whereby poor, often rural families place a child, primarily daughters, in the home of a more wealthy family in the cities; in exchange, the child typically works for the family. Although the practice is ostensibly intended to give an education to the child, the situation frequently degenerates to forced servitude. Vidomegon children may be subjected to poor working and living conditions, may be denied education, and are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, including trafficking. Today the practice is one of the major reasons why only one in four school-age girls in Benin ever attends school. Nor is enrollment the whole story, because of the persistent challenge of girls dropping out of school. Another obstacle to girls’ education is early marriage: If girls do get to attend primary school, they are often withdrawn before they finish to work as unpaid laborers for their extended family, to be married off, or to have children.

[Page 149]Girls are the most vulnerable segment of society and the most affected by gender-based violence. The global economic downturn will have particularly damaging consequences for girls worldwide because it will have a significant effect on the trade of domestic workers with neighboring countries, where thousands of young girls will face exploitation and abuse.