Worldwide, the statistics on informal economies are as appalling as the conditions of the people in them.
About 61% of the world’s population earns its living in the informal sector, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO) of the United Nations. Closer home, in Africa, 85.8% of employment is informal.
For many, this means substandard or inhuman living and working conditions, lack of social protection, unending suffering, abuse and no hope. And sadly, women are the most vulnerable victims in this cycle of pain and penury.
“Of the two billion in informal employment worldwide, over 740 million are women,” says ILO.
With educational opportunities lacking, and rising unemployment and cost of living, the low-income groups are the hardest hit. Women in the informal sector have no choice but to take on the onus as bread winners, compelled to start small businesses or trades for survival.
In the hustle and bustle of the grimy streets of Johannesburg’s Central Business District (CBD), it’s the survival-of-the-fittest-entrepreneur – and for the women, it means fighting every form of injustice.
They turn to the streets to keep their families off them.
Rosheda Muller, President of the South African Informal Traders Alliance, says the hardships female traders experience include isolation, vulnerability when doing cross-border trade, bribery, theft, rape and abuse of all kinds. All this as they try to put food on the table for their families.
“There’s no social protection for our women. We are working towards the formalization of the informal sector; to ensure informal traders have protection, maternity leave, and leave when they fall ill,” Muller tells FORBES AFRICA.
At 5AM on a cold Tuesday morning in Johannesburg’s CBD, this writer witnesses the sun awakening the streets, the immigrant traders and the pigeons flocking to scavenge off the remnants of the night. On Rahima Moosa Street, popularly known as Jeppe Street, the smell of piping hot magwinya (deep-fried doughnuts), pervades the morning air. It’s a filling snack at only R1 ($0.08).
Shops here sell everything from clothes to accessories and hair. Together, they contribute to the sights, sounds and smells of the City of Gold.
“Johannesburg is one of the most diverse places when it comes to informal trading,” Muller says.
In the pages that follow, FORBES WOMAN AFRICA speaks to three female traders from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and the Limpopo Province of South Africa, on how they have turned these street corners into their business hubs.
Sharon Muteto 
From Harare, Zimbabwe
<div id="attachment_36590" style="width: 693px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36590" class="wp-image-36590 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TLH_9376-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="683" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TLH_9376-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TLH_9376-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TLH_9376-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TLH_9376-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TLH_9376-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TLH_9376.jpg 1366w" sizes="(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" />Sharon Muteto. Photograph by Motlabana Monnakgotla</div>
<blockquote> “They say a person working on the streets is someone who has no dignity.”</blockquote>
We wait by her tin stall on Jeppe Street. Muteto shares her space with a Malawian man and a Congolese woman. They watch out for each other’s stall at break-time. This time, it’s Jay Jay, the Malawian’s turn to watch Muteto’s stock.
Muteto’s stall is held up with crates, a wooden top and cloth covering. She sells clothes and magwinya. A few minutes later, she shows up, dressed in a woolen winter hat, black sweater and chitenge (African print wraparound). She welcomes us to her humble abode, offering the only chair.
Five years ago, Muteto decided to start her own business on the streets.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2015/07/01/a-phd-from-the-streets/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: A PhD From The Streets</a>
“They will say that a person working on the streets is someone who has no dignity,” says Muteto.
The 33-year-old fled Zimbabwe due to the political instability. She had a business selling second-hand clothes in Harare but it failed. That’s when she opted to chase a better life in South Africa. But the barriers bewildered her.
“When I came here, I found out this is also becoming difficult for me. To work and gather up my finances and go back is difficult. I thought, ‘why can’t I just stock here and sell here’?”
Muteto’s first job in Johannesburg was as a saleswomen in an Indian shop. She worked for a pittance; she barely made enough money to send to her 12-year-old daughter in Zimbabwe. And she also had to support a sick mother.
“I knew I was making too much profit for them [her employers] because I know how to sell,” says Muteto.
After a year at the shop, Muteto garnered the courage to set up on her own. Although she has often had to keep criminals from stealing her stock, and deal with harsh weather conditions and low profits, Mutato wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Doing business is in my blood. I am satisfied making my own money, even if it’s small,” she smiles.
Muteto remains hopeful that one day her business will flourish and create jobs for others.
“Women must be very strong. They must sacrifice for their business. They must not lose hope too early because everything has got its own time.
Zanele Langa 
From Maputo, Mozambique
<div id="attachment_36591" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36591" class="wp-image-36591 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DSC_0175-1024x681.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="681" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DSC_0175-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DSC_0175-300x199.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DSC_0175-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DSC_0175-768x510.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DSC_0175.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Zanele Langa. Photograph by Karen Mwendera</div>
<blockquote>“God gave me this skill to do hair so I love it.”</blockquote>
Five mannequin heads are lined up on a raised wall by a pedestrian walkway on Jeppe Street in the Johannesburg CBD. They are adorned with wigs and weaves of all textures. They all belong to Langa, a self-taught hair dresser from Mozambique.
The 33-year-old speaks fluent Shangaan, a Bantu language similar to Zulu, allowing her to blend in with the locals.
Langa knows the streets of Johannesburg like the back of her hand. But unlike the others, she does not have a permanent stand.
Every 30 days, she makes the five-hour trip to the border to renew her stay in South Africa, a technique many immigrants adopt in order to make a decent living without cumbersome paperwork. It’s a price she is willing to pay.
“God gave me this skill to do hair so I love it,” says the soft-spoken Langa, focusing on a mannequin head, but wary of her surrounds, and the omnipresent policemen.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2016/12/01/pythons-peacemakers-vilakazi-street/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Pythons And Peacemakers Down Vilakazi Street</a>
“They took two wigs of mine last week. We followed them and asked them to bring them back but they didn’t,” she says sadly. The wigs cost about R300 ($24) each.
It’s either fight or flight for these hair traders in the CBD.
Langa has to make ends meet somehow; she had run away from an alcoholic husband and has four children to look after. So she has to be street-smart. During the interview, she ably intercepts passersby, goading them to buy her wares.
Langa hopes to make enough money to one day open her own salon in Maputo, miles away from any intrusive metro policeman.
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Dollen Khashane 
From Limpopo, South Africa
<div id="attachment_36592" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36592" class="wp-image-36592 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TLH_9452-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TLH_9452-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TLH_9452-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TLH_9452-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TLH_9452-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/TLH_9452.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Dollen Khashane. Photograph by Motlabana Monnakgotla</div>
<blockquote>“We sell [on the streets] because there aren’t any jobs.”</blockquote>
Born and raised in a small village in Thohoyandou, Limpopo, Khashane left her home at the age of 21 to seek work in big city Johannesburg.
In 2001, she got her first job in the informal sector as a domestic worker. Nine years later, Khashane decided to become a street vendor.
“You can end up the whole day without selling nothing,” she says when we meet her.
“Like today…yet I will come back in the morning and open my shop again,” she smiles, concealing her disappointment.
Khashane had no idea what she was getting into and sought guidance from her husband who had some experience selling on the streets. They sold socks for a living.
Back then, they didn’t have a stall; they would place their goods on a potato sack and lay them on the concrete street floor. The couple would lose out on thousands each time the police patrolled the area and forcibly removed their goods.
Khashane recalls the pain of having to wake up early, carrying a heavy bag of goods, every day. Their business has grown. Today, they own two stalls between them. She sells accessories, makeup, clothes, underwear, cigarettes and watches.
“When you are selling here in the street they think maybe you are not normal, but all of us went to school. We sell here because there aren’t any jobs,” she says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/homepage/2018/04/16/loud-lonely-streets-life-lagos-hawkwer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Loud And Lonely On The Streets – The Life of A Lagos Hawker</a>
The thoughts of feeding her five children keep her going. Four of them are in Limpopo with her mother while the youngest lives with her. Every day, she drops off her two-year-old son at a crèche.
Next to her stall, two Nigerian men sell fruits and clothes. They keep a close watch for thieves. A block away from us, metro policemen are patroling the street. For Khashane, it’s a sight she knows all too well. It’s time to quickly wrap up, run and return tomorrow.

TLH_9369

No Cutting Corners When It Comes To Business For These Women

On a rainy Tuesday morning in Lekki, Lagos in Nigeria, 12-year old Ezinne Ibrahim runs frantically after a moving bus balancing a heavy load of bottled groundnuts on a tray on her head with one hand and a bottle in the other hand.
As she gets closer to the bus’s open window, a passenger hurriedly reaches out to snatch the bottle from her and tosses N500 ($1) on the ground before the bus speeds off. Ibrahim bends to pick up the drenched note, narrowly avoiding being hit by a truck from the opposite side of the road. She quickly scans the oncoming traffic for potential customers before crossing the road to get cover from the heavy downpour.
“I am here from six in the morning until 10PM with my mother,” says Ibrahim. Her mother, 45-year-old Sade, expertly weaves between traffic lanes, sells two bottles of groundnuts before joining us under the shed.
“I have been selling on the streets for the past eight years now and that is how I earn a living to feed my family. We used to sell in Victoria Island last year but we changed locations because this area has a lot more traffic and that means more money. I know it is dangerous for Ezinne and I never wanted her to do this but I cannot afford to put her into school,” says Sade.
On a good day, they make roughly N20,000 ($55). If life is already hard, it has gotten a lot harder for the pair over the past couple of years.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2018/03/14/successes-amid-squatters/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Successes Amid The Squatters</a>
Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI), Lagos state’s environment law enforcement unit established in 2003 by the government to enforce environmental law in the state, is a constant threat to street hawkers.
“We get harassed several times a week by the task force. They arrest us and detain us for hours before releasing us if we pay them something,” says Bayo Adesina, a gum and sweets seller.
“We have a look at who calls whenever KAI is coming and we all stop selling and run. They cannot stop us from trading because this is the only way we know to survive,” says Sade.
In July 2016, in an attempt to escape the tight leash of the law, a street hawker was run over by a bus, leading to widespread violence and destruction by a mob. The incident led to even tighter regulations being enforced by Lagos State governor Akinwumi Ambode who declared a fine of N90, 000 ($250) or a six-month jail term.
“Things have really gotten a lot tougher for us because you never know when the task force will detain you. We move about a lot so they do not find us and take away what little money we have,” says Adesina.
However, Lagos State says the clampdown on street hawkers is necessary as it causes traffic jams and puts their own lives at risk.
Yakubu Mohammed, 25, sells watches on a busy intersection in Ladipo.
“Competition is tough here because there are so many of us. I make about N35,000 ($100) a month which I use to feed my wife and child,” he says.
According to the African Development Bank (AfDB), over 55% of Africa’s GDP comes from the informal sector, accounting for about 80% of the labour force. Many of those are street vendors like Mohammed who have traded in everything from windscreen wipers to mobile phone chargers in the past year alone.
“You sell what you can get your hands on. Sometimes there is a lot of supply of certain types of products and they are easy to get your hands on so you get them and start selling,” says Mohammed.
That supply is driven by an insatiable demand by customers who prefer the convenience of picking up items on their way to their various destinations.
<div id="attachment_35891" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35891" class="wp-image-35891 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/hawker-1024x685.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="685" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/hawker-1024x685.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/hawker-300x201.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/hawker-600x401.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/hawker-768x514.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/hawker.jpg 1725w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />A street vendor hawks tubers of yam in a wheel-barrow in Ketu district of Lagos. Photograph supplied.</div>
The constant ruckus between government enforcement agencies and street hawkers has led to a debate about tighter regulation of the informal sector in Nigeria.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/investment-guide/2012/11/01/nigeria-invest-not-invest-question/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Nigeria: To Invest Or Not To Invest? That Is The Question</a>
According to a Reuters report, unemployment in Africa’s most populous economy is at 14% and climbing. Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) claims: “By 2035, sub-Saharan Africa will have more working-age people than the rest of the world’s regions combined. This growing workforce will have to be met with jobs.”
“Unless the government gets a firm grip on these critical macro economic issues, the potential of the informal sector can never be realized. A lot of the stress of unemployment has been taken up by the informal sector who pay no taxes but contribute significantly to the country’s wealth,” says Bismarck Rewane, CEO of Financial Derivatives Company in Lagos.
According to the IMF report, most entrepreneurs in the informal sector reported doing what they were doing out of necessity and given the chance would rather work in the formal sector.
Bashiru Amusha dreamed of becoming a doctor but his parents could not afford to send him to school. He now owns a kiosk selling airtime vouchers in Victoria Island.
“I try to make do with what I have. I used to be a security man for a company sometime ago but things didn’t work out and I had to leave. I am hoping someone can help me get a car so I can turn it into a taxi and pay him back with interest,” he says.
In view of the economy, the informal sector presents both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it is a great representation of entrepreneurship development and growth in the number of start-ups on the streets.
However, this growth is negligible when you weigh up the low productivity and the poorly-skilled workers prevalent in the informal sector.
“This is actually detrimental to the Nigerian economy because the informal sector accounts for about 50 to 65 percent of GDP and that represents reduced growth for the economy. So it is actually important to provide skilled training to improve productivity and regulate the informal sector through taxation,” says Rewane.
As Africa’s largest economy struggles to come to grips with growing unemployment rates and barriers to entry, the informal sector is the only way out for thousands of unemployed Nigerians whose only need is to somehow make ends meet.

NIGERIA-HAWKER

Loud And Lonely On The Streets – The Life of A Lagos Hawker

It’s a familiar scene on a hot day in Accra, the capital of Ghana. The alleys are packed with women, carrying children on their backs, selling vegetables and fake Louis Vuitton bags while men sell anything they can get their hands on. Here, you could be sold a drug that could kill you.
The danger is counterfeit drugs that masquerade as healers but threaten to do the opposite.
Victoria Amponsah claims fake drugs almost robbed her of her unborn child like a thief in the night. The day she was diagnosed with malaria she also learned she was two months pregnant. She went to the nearest pharmacy, in Accra, and bought prescribed anti-malarial drugs she thought would save her and her child.
“That evening, I took the medicine. After about two to three hours, I started shaking and vomiting. I felt weak. I called a cotenant and showed her the drug and she said ‘I know this drug, its ok’. But when she [took out the pills from the box] she said ‘this is not the drug that is supposed to be in this box,’” Amponsah told the NGO, United States Pharmacopeia (USP).
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_5209" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5209" class="size-medium wp-image-5209" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Bright_Pharmacy_Lonart_Phone_2015_hi-res-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Bright B. Simons is the brain behind mPedigree, a technology that&#8217;s used to counter counterfeiting of pharmaceutical products, wax prints and other products that are prone to piracy. Accra, Ghana.</div>
She was rushed to the hospital where a doctor confirmed the drug she took was fake. She managed to complete her pregnancy, but this was not the end of her struggle.
Near the end of her pregnancy, she almost died from a fake version of oxytocin, disguised in convincing packaging. Within 30 minutes of administration, Amponsah was sweating, shaking, vomiting and bleeding.
“I was bleeding so bad. [The doctors] were scared and didn’t want me to move,” she says.
She nearly lost her baby and was hospitalized for two days. For months later, she had to return to the hospital often, for checks.
“Sometimes I hear stories of a person who was fine, gave birth and the next minute the person has died and you find that they gave the person an injection and they died from it. I didn’t know it was that bad,” says Amponsah.
It is the poor, like Amponsah, that suffer. According to the Dutch Malaria Foundation, malaria is responsible for the death of one child dies every 45 seconds, but a third of malaria drugs sold in Africa are fake.
“My son was my biggest present; the center of my life. He is all I have… I am hoping that globally people understand that our lives are more important than the little money they will make out of bringing a fake drug out. [I hope] people will understand that it’s not all about money. It’s about life… the smallest thing, like just a tiny drug which is bad can cause so much damage in one’s life,” she says.
Amponsah and her son Denzel are among the few lucky ones. Over 30% of antimalarials in Africa contribute to nearly 450,000 preventable deaths each year, according to a report in the medical journal The Lancet. Fake tuberculosis and malaria drugs kill an estimated 700,000 people a year, according to the International Policy Network.
The manufacturers of this fake medicine make it look like the real thing. Mario Ottiglio, the Director of Public Affairs, Communications and Global Health Policy of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), says fake medicine thrives in countries with weak regulation.
“In areas of infectious disease, like malaria and tuberculosis, fake products with incorrect dosage of ingredients can result in antimicrobial resistance to genuine treatments. At a global level, analysis of reports over a five-year period, from 2005 to 2010, indicates that incidents of fake medicine increased by 122 percent, while diversion and theft increased by 66 percent,” says Ottiglio.
In 2009, 84 Nigerian children were killed by toxic chemicals that were laced with teething medications for babies. In 2012, Angolan custom agents busted counterfeiters importing what turned out to be one of the largest fake medicine imports in history, when containers shipped from China to Luanda, the capital of Angola, were filled with over 1.4 million packets of a fake version of the antimalarial drug, Coartem.
“In 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a global surveillance and monitoring system… Thus far, 48 percent of cases reported [to the system] have been in the African Region,” says Ottiglio.
A study published in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease found one in every six pills in Africa to be fake. Furthermore, a survey conducted by the National Institute of Health, which examined over 2,600 malaria drug samples across 21 sub-Saharan African countries, found 20% of these drugs were fake and a third were of poor quality.
Ottiglio says the first line of defence is to always buy medicine from licensed and certified sellers. People can check the packaging of the product for spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. Check for expiry dates and that the details on the outer package match up with the inner packaging. Those who are familiar with the medicine can check that the pill looks correct, is not discolored, degraded or doesn’t have an unusual smell.
Even with checks, there is still a problem. Some fake products are almost visually identical to the genuine ones. Often it’s difficult to tell the fake from the real thing.
Patrick Lukulay, Vice President of Global Health Impact Programs at United States Pharmacopeia, says during the outbreak of Ebola in Liberia, there were fake drugs on the market purporting to cure Ebola and people were attracted to them.
“The drugs most counterfeited though are lifestyle drugs such as Viagra and Cialis&#8230; Antibiotics and antimalarials are heavily counterfeited also because of demand for these drugs and the tendency for people to self-medicate. ARVs (antiretrovirals) are also counterfeited because of demand and the fact that people might seek to buy them in private settings for confidentiality purposes instead of getting them free from public facilities,” says Lukulay.
These drugs, according to Lukulay, are made in countries that have developed capacity for pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging, such as India, China, Vietnam and Malaysia.
He says the ingredients used for fake drugs are usually cheaper versions of legitimate ingredients. An example is diethylene glycol, which is toxic but 10 times cheaper than the legitimate pharmaceutical grade ingredient, glycerine.
“They may also include impure cheap raw materials, such as over-sulphated chondroitin sulphate, the one found in blood thinner, heparin, a few years ago that killed people in the US,” says Lukulay.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5208" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20160801_091625-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" />
Unfortunately, the problem grows at an alarming rate. Lukulay estimates the counterfeit drug market is worth over $75 billion per year.
Like many problems in Africa, it is seen as an opportunity by private money.
In Ghana, entrepreneur, Bright Simons, says he has developed a program that is helping to curb the counterfeit drugs.
In 2007, he launched mPedigree, a company that has created software manufacturers can use to label their product packaging with a random code hidden beneath a scratch-off covering. If a consumer wants to know if their product is fake or not, they can just scratch off the covering and SMS the code to a toll-free number. They will then be notified whether the product is authentic.
Simons claims his services are used by around 100 million people per year in 12 countries, from India to Uganda.
“Our biggest frontier now is predictive analytics, in particular the use of our EarlySensor technology to predict hotspots and flashpoints of emerging counterfeit activity by looking at large data sets across time and space. If we can predict retail points that are likely to be targeted by counterfeiters by disrupting upstream distribution networks, we can actually stop counterfeiting from even getting to the level of the consumer,” he says.
This will help prevent the suffering that Amponsah experienced. She at least lived to tell her story; many more were not so lucky.

Tag: Hawkers

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

No Cutting Corners When It Comes To Business For These Women

Loud And Lonely On The Streets – The Life of A Lagos Hawker

A Deadly $75-Billion Business