Women in Development, Food Security and Islamic Religion: Exploration of Gender Oppression in Eastern Nigeria

Abstract

In Africa, women are considered as agent of development and custodian of culture and sources oforganic food. Their roles in the countryside are invaluable when one examines their inputs in foodavailability, affordability, accessibility and quality against their male counterpart. Also worth notingis the mobility of males to urban areas where they look for unavailable paid jobs. This paper examinesthe roles of women in food security and how they lack basic resources to actualise their developmentalroles in their communities due to cultural and religious reasons. Access to land and collateral tosecure financial help from banks is almost unavailable. To this, they continue to practice farming atthe subsistence level. We intend to examine what The Holy Quran says regarding women's rights in achanging world. In trying to examine this, the paper adopts green theory with some flavours of thefeminist paradigm and secondary sources of data. A conclusion is drawn that Islamic religion empowerswomen more than what African culture dictates.