Women’s empowerment and market skills improve rural livelihoods
Through FAO’s Women’s Empowerment Farmer Business School training, Hos Salop learned to analyse the trends of her family farm and develop a five-year business plan that focuses on meeting local demand.
©FAO/Chann Tet
Hos Salop’s days always began very early. She would cook breakfast for her husband and her three-year-old grandchild before working on her family farm in the village of Pongro in northwest Cambodia. She collected vegetables, fed the chickens and a pig, cleaned her house and dropped her grandchild off at school, all before heading to her full-time day job as a civil servant and member of the Ta Phou commune council. Even though this job generates much-needed additional income for her family, her husband, Day Deat, a smallholder farmer himself, used to be against her working there.
In rural Cambodia, it has been traditionally inappropriate for women to work outside their homes. These deep-rooted social norms result in discrimination and marginalization of rural women, limiting their access to education, resources, employment opportunities and participation in decision-making processes.
At work at the council, Salop found that she could be confident and assertive, but she felt unable to do so at home. When faced with her husband’s remonstrations, she chose to remain silent.