[IN IMAGES] Diving into the world of work in Africa

Women on a tea plantation in Kenya, 2020. © Shawn Sitat Kasale

Text by: Florence Morice Follow

4 mins

“What do we see and what do we know about work in Africa?

This is the theme of an exhibition of photographs, texts and videos visible until April 30 at the Alliance Française in Nairobi.

It brings together the work of nine Burundian, Comorian, French and Kenyan photographers and researchers.

A sensitive and documented dive into the often ignored daily life of workers on the continent.

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From our correspondent in Nairobi, 

The camera lingers on the ample and sure gestures of a sugar cane cutter.

This is an excerpt from one of the videos that accompany this exhibition conceived in three parts.

The first, dedicated to “small urban trades”: a sensitive highlighting of the precarious and often neglected daily life of a large majority of women and men in African cities.

We see, for example, the exhausted body of a domestic worker in the Comoros, next to the photo of a garbage collector proud to pose in front of his wheelbarrow full of garbage in Addis Ababa. 

Garbage collector in the residential neighborhood of Kebena in Addis Ababa in 2017. © Constance Perrin-Joly

The invisible workers

Among the exhibited photographers, the Burundian Pacifique Bukuru, author of the series "A life of Yaya or the Calvary of Goreth".

We discover the daily life and the shattered dreams of a young Burundian woman who has come from the countryside to the city, to her sister's house, in search of a future.

She will actually be exploited as “Yaya”, as young domestic workers are called in the country.

The young Goreth, from the rural world, migrated to the city, where she thought she would find a promising future.

However, the day after her arrival at her big sister's, she discovered that she would be required to do all the housework.

© Pacific Bukuru

With this series, Pacifique Bukuru wishes to fight against the indifference of society vis-à-vis the ordeal they endure: “

 In most cases, these girls are not paid.

When they break a plate, employers tell them: I'm not going to pay you this month.

And they can't even complain for fear of returning to the countryside, to the misery inside the country.

The problem is that Burundian society does not see the danger and that this persecution is not recognized.

It's as if her employer who gives her a bedroom, food for dinner in the evening, was a favor for her.

Even the families inside the country, when asked, the families think it's an opportunity.

Their child is looking for money, a small 10,000 francs

[4.48 euros]

in Bujumbura.

Most people do not question the experience of these young girls who do not speak to say how they are mistreated.

A feminization of work

The second part of the exhibition is devoted to work in the plantations.

Among the eye-catching shots is that of a bent woman repairing ropes for seaweed farming in Zanzibar.

His face is hollow.

The legend tells us his age: 74 years old.

Mama Asha, 74, repairs her ropes for seaweed farming, Zanzibar, January 2013. ©Ania Gruca

The third part is a dive into industrialization on the continent.

It presents rare images of female workers at work, for example soldering photovoltaic cells together in Kenya or sorting labels in Ethiopia.

Workers in a solar panel factory, Naivasha, Kenya, February 2020. © Tom Durand

A way for the curators of the exhibition to recall that as elsewhere, industrialization in Africa is accompanied by a feminization of work and to stand out from miserable representations reducing the world of work in Africa to its only informal sector.

 African Workplaces, an exhibition to discover until April 30 at the Alliance française de Nairobi

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