Kayayo menace in the Context of Wa East District in Ghana

Abstract

After independence from the colonial rule, there is growing need in northerners of Ghana to drift towards the southern part. The youngsters including women and girls with little or no formal education, who undertake this internal migration, engage in menial jobs in the southern cities for despicable rewards. Their male counterparts take up labor intensive jobs that demand strength and energy such as pushing trucks, weeding surroundings, pounding “fufu” in chop bars, and illegal small scale mining activities. Mostly, despite some of the girls becoming nannies and servants in restaurants they are engaged in transporting loads on head for their clients which is termed as “kayayo” in Ghana. Kayayo denotes both the activity and the person in the activity. Research enthusiasts have occupied themselves with the push and pull factors as driving force for the kayayo business in Ghana. Poverty, lack or inadequate social amenities, northern conflicts, bad weather conditions, forced marriages, and development disparities are highlighted as such factors in recent research outcomes. The social menace and impact as result of kayayo is overlooked. In this paper, attempts are made to find answers for the following: security threat, livelihood alternatives, and district peculiarities hence Kayayo Menace in the Context of Wa East District of Ghana. A Sample of 1000 women from Wa East District was interviewed for the study. Unstructured interviews and personal observations were used as the tools for data collection. The study showed that 13 communities are most affected with their education, security, marriages, and health threatened in those communities. Secondary kayayei:people indirectly involved in that business were identified, including alternative livelihoods such as shea butter processing, dry season farming, hairdressing, and dress making, and some policy suggestions were made in the studies.    

Keywords: girls, kayayo, migration, wa east district, women