Mamounata OUEDRAOGO

Mamounata has created a systemic process for ending the discriminatory norms and practices of hereditary rulers who exercise customary authority over the daily lives of people living in rural communities and small cities in Burkina Faso. Now she is spreading her idea to the cities and counties in neighboring countries that are immediately adjacent to Burkina’s central and southern borders – Mali, Niger, Benin, and Ivory Coast.

Mamounata Ouedraogo emerges with a transformative vision aimed at questioning discriminatory norms perpetuated by hereditary rulers in rural communities. Hereditary rulers obtain their decision-making power and role through generational transfer within their families. They are responsible for decisions about the development of their villages and the preservation of the practices and traditions of their communities, which generally greatly limit the progress of vulnerable groups such as women and children (e.g., women who get pregnant before they marry are banned from their villages).

Leveraging her strategic approach, Mamounata collaborates closely with key stakeholders, including administrative and religious authorities, local community managers, and civil society leaders, to garner support for capacity building through education, advocacy, and raising awareness. In 2009, she founded REPAFER (Network of Rural Women for the Empowerment of Rural Women) to serve as a potent advocacy tool, fostering community engagement and driving grassroots initiatives to challenge discriminatory practices.

Inspired by her leadership, Mamounata’s efforts extend beyond Burkina Faso’s borders, recognizing the cross-border nature of discriminatory practices. Collaborating with organizations and activists in neighboring countries such as Mali, Niger, Benin, and Côte d’Ivoire, she seeks to create a regional network of advocates working collectively to combat discrimination and promote equality. By fostering cross-border cooperation, resource sharing, and knowledge exchange, Mamounata aims to amplify the impact of her advocacy efforts and create lasting change on a regional scale, empowering marginalized communities and promoting social justice as she has in Southern Central rural villages in Burkina Faso.

Moreover, in 2023, Mamounata embarked on a groundbreaking initiative to engage neighboring governments in Mali, Niger, and Benin to foster new female leadership and best practices and strategies across borders. Through visits and exchanges between hereditary rulers and women cooperative leaders in Burkina Faso and their counterparts in neighboring countries, Mamounata is strengthening collaboration and mutual support in challenging discriminatory practices and advancing gender equality.

In Burkina Faso, rural women face entrenched sociocultural and economic barriers that hinder their advancement and prosperity. Traditional gender norms confine women to domestic roles, limiting their access to education and decision-making spheres. This perpetuates a cycle of inequality, with only 23% of women completing secondary education, exacerbating their exclusion from economic activities and community development efforts.

Economically, rural women encounter obstacles to financial independence and entrepreneurship, despite constituting the majority of the agricultural workforce. Limited access to land ownership, financial resources, credit, and technology hampers their ability to adopt modern agricultural practices, contributing to the gender pay gap identified by the International Labour Organization. This economic disparity, compounded by sociocultural challenges, traps rural women in a cycle of poverty.

Back in 2016, village chiefs began to face threats as jihadist groups began to move around rural Burkina, trying to recruit (by force or persuasion) boys and men and marrying or kidnapping girls and young women. Women who are subject to these discriminatory practices are more vulnerable and tend to be recruited by organized armed groups like the jihadist. Women are often targeted for recruitment by organized armed groups like jihadists due to the vulnerabilities stemming from discriminatory practices and social inequalities prevalent in their communities, which limit their access to education, economic opportunities, and decision-making roles, rendering them economically marginalized and socially isolated. Furthermore, armed groups exploit gender norms and traditional roles assigned to women, manipulating cultural expectations of women as caregivers, wives, and mothers to coerce or deceive them into joining their ranks, offering financial incentives, protection, or a sense of belonging. Recognizing the strategic value of recruiting women, armed groups leverage their access to networks and spaces, assigning them various roles such as logistical support, intelligence gathering, and propaganda dissemination, to bolster their operational capacity and exploit existing gender inequalities within society.

Despite ongoing efforts, systemic gaps persist, with challenges in implementing laws and inadequate advocacy outcomes. Political underrepresentation, insufficient legal enforcement, and the impact of displacement on vulnerable populations require sustained and comprehensive interventions to address gender-related challenges in Burkina Faso. Women, girls, adolescents, and children remain disproportionately affected, constituting 52% of the population. Their representation in decision-making roles remains minimal, exacerbating vulnerabilities, including sexual violence, early marriages, female genital mutilation, and abductions, especially in displaced populations.

Therefore, women’s vulnerability to recruitment by armed groups underscores the urgent need to address underlying socio-economic disparities and discriminatory practices. According to Mamounata, empowering women, promoting gender equality, and providing alternative avenues for participation and socio-economic advancement are essential steps in preventing the exploitation of women by organized armed groups. Additionally, efforts to combat radicalization and extremism must include targeted interventions aimed at addressing the specific vulnerabilities and needs of women in conflict-affected areas.

Mamounata Ouedraogo embarked on a remarkable journey, traversing villages and engaging with village chiefs to secure their crucial support. Mamounata Ouedraogo made a deal with the hereditary leader of the Ouedraogo: you give women and girls their freedom from onerous penalties related to their roles as mothers and wives and tell the Village Chiefs to give women and girls sufficient vacant land suitable for farming. This arrangement led to the establishment of 100 women-led cooperatives, which became instrumental in driving economic prosperity within the communities governed by hereditary rulers. Mamounata strategically capitalized on the significance of agricultural cooperatives in rural settings, often serve as the primary source of the community’s agricultural goods and services, providing essential products in markets underserved by large producers.

Mamounata initiated a young women ambassador’s program, carefully selecting forty women from her region and neighboring areas to spearhead grassroots efforts in organizing women-led cooperatives. Leveraging diverse platforms, she collaborates closely with the Ministry of Education and school principals to identify highly engaged young girls. These individuals are equipped with essential skills such as problem-solving and decision-making, along with resources to effectively support women-led cooperatives and local associations. Recently, Mamounata concluded the selection process for an additional 40 women tasked with organizational responsibilities in four southern and central provinces, where jihadist activity remains prevalent, thereby expanding the program’s scope and influence.

Furthermore, Mamounata’s initiatives not only address economic disparities but also challenge entrenched power dynamics, including those of hereditary rulers. The coordination cell she established, comprising police officers, gendarmes, lawyers, and representatives from various ministries, serves as a platform for collaboration and resource mobilization. Mamounata is creating spaces where local administrative authorities are compelled to confront hereditary rulers, signaling a shift in power dynamics. By leveraging the support of law enforcement and government agencies, Mamounata not only amplifies her advocacy but also curtails the unchecked influence of traditional authorities.

Through strategic partnerships with organizations like WANEP Burkina, IPBF, EQUIPOP, and government ministries, Mamounata facilitated the establishment of the "Coalition Women, Peace, and Social Cohesion of the Center-South Region" in 2022. This coalition brought together stakeholders from three provinces and 19 rural and urban municipalities, amplifying collective efforts for positive change. Mamounata’s strategic engagement of religious leaders, youth, and women in these initiatives earned recognition from the Burkina Faso government for her pivotal role in reshaping education. Collaborating closely with stakeholders, she ensured the removal of gender-based violence from the curriculum, resulting in tangible outcomes such as changes in reading materials in Burkina Faso this year. Operating both nationally and sub-regionally through her organization, Mamounata has made a significant impact, reaching six out of thirteen regions in Burkina Faso and positively influencing the lives of 27,580 people.

Future plans entail collaborating with organizations and activists in neighboring countries like Mali, Niger, Benin, and Côte d’Ivoire to build a regional network of advocates. This collective effort aims to combat discrimination and advance equality across borders. Mamounata also intends to organize cross-border initiatives, including workshops, conferences, and awareness campaigns, to raise awareness and mobilize support for gender equality and human rights throughout the region.

Mamounata was born into a polygamous family in 1983 in the village of Nue, in the south-central Burkina Faso. There were four wives and thirty children in the family. Her father died when she was 14, and her mother was told that she must now marry her husband’s brother, but her mother refused.

Mamounata became pregnant at the age of 18 and was unmarried. By custom, she was sent out of the community, in her case, to her aunt’s house in another village and was forbidden by the village chief from visiting her ancestral home and from talking to any male member of her family. From her aunt’s house, she was sent to the city, to the house of the man who made her pregnant. But that man had since married, and he and his wife refused to feed Mamanouta when she arrived, and they made her sleep on the floor in the parlor. That man’s brother then took Mamanouta back to her family’s ancestral home in her village, and this time, the village chief allowed her to remain in her ancestral home with her mother.

Thanks to a grant from Plan International, Mamanouta went to work in the Prefect’s office and started taking evening classes. In 2008, she got a job as a teacher in the village school. Through building trust and talking candidly with the mothers, she discovered that many of the women in the village had experiences similar to hers: teenage pregnancies that had caused them trauma and left them poor and unable to feed their children adequately.

Mamanouta went to the village chief and asked for 10 hectares of land where the women could grow rice in the wet season. During the dry season, Mamanouta conducted literacy programs for mothers. That approach was copied by villages in the area, but the men in the village wouldn’t accept the women into leadership, and so Mamanouta began to investigate how the Royal Ouedraogo Family exercised their control over the village chiefs. She knew that their own village chief had faced the problem of an unmarried teenage girl in his own polygamous family and that he knew other village chiefs who had faced that same problem.

It took Mamounata four years of traveling from one village to another to meet with all of the village chiefs in the territory of the Ouedraogo hereditary ruler. She strategically planned these visits during periods when schools were closed, allowing her to engage with the chiefs when they were more accessible. As Mamounata continued her journey, news of her quest spread throughout the region, generating widespread discussion and interest. Through her persistent efforts and persuasive communication, Mamounata succeeded in convincing the village chiefs to unanimously support her proposition. Together, they decided to present Mamounata’s proposition as their own and approach the intermediary with the hereditary ruler, demonstrating a unified front in advocating for change.