Gender Issue and Urban Renewal Development: An Examination of Challenges of Evicted Market Women in Lagos State, Nigeria

Abstract

Literature has revealed that in any urban renewal programmes, women's interest are not usually incorporated as many women were usually left in horrendous position and face lots of challenges. This paper therefore examines challenges faced by the women traders that were forcefully evicted from market stalls by urban renewal programmes in the study area. The paper adopted qualitative method of data collection. Key Informant Interviewing (KII) and In Depth Interviewing (IDI) methods were used to collect information from eighty respondents that purposively chosen through snowball method. The paper adopted social exclusion theory to discuss the problem. The information gathered revealed that, the programme was impacting negatively on market women and in turn has profound effect in their capacity to take care of households’ economy. Major challenges face by the women respondents include inability to pay for new market shops, securing another start- up, transferring some of their children to live with relatives and constant harassments by local government officials in an attempt to dissuade them from reorganization.. Information revealed that women respondents were strategizing in order to overcome the present challenges by devising various coping methods. However, those survival methods may impact negatively on their health and serious implications for the future of their children. The paper proposes that government and policy makers should adequately address this matter of backlash that results from its interventions in mega-city development by providing alternative market spaces at a subsidized rate to the affected women. This would in turn enable the evicted market women traders subsidize household economy and provide motherly care to their children.