Jeanne Rolande Dacougna lives close to the situation of black African women, among other things because she is Senegalese and an intercultural mediator. In her final work of specialized studies on equality and gender, she reflects on the changes that migration produces in African women from the CAPV. “People are adapting their culture, each one brings theirs from its origin, but when they reach another country, the way and values of understanding that culture must be adapted. In the case of the women studied, these changes have meant the construction of new ways of being that have acquired new values and have left aside some of those who already had. From here and there, they have built a transnational identity that has provoked a process of empowerment in women.”

Dacougna has interviewed eight women from different countries in Black Africa and has concluded that the changes are costly, which costs to adapt to the way of life here. Most of the women who migrate do so to regroup their family, that is, the husband comes first and then the woman. “In general, you want to see what this looks like. They are glad to have come, but life here is hard at first, then they adapt.” For some, migrating is also a way to escape from the environment: “Once married, many will live at the house of their husband’s parents and their mother-in-law tells them what they have to do, they have no freedom to move. Therefore, they ask their husbands to bring them here.”

There are those who have lost as much as they gain by following the path taken by their husband, as many have been forced to abandon high-level employment and status with their higher education in the countries of origin. One of them told Dacougna: “I would like to continue to live in Africa. I do not mean that I have won nothing, but by taking stock, I think I have lost a lot coming here. There I would be working, because I had a fixed position, in what I learned and liked.” Another reads as follows: “Here life is very hard, it is very difficult to advance. I went down because I had gone out there to graduate and worked for that. But here's not the same thing, here you work on what you can." From the labor point of view, the interviewee acknowledges that in Senegal he valued himself more.

Lost studies

They think that, after studying in the country of origin, they will find it easier to work in our country, but on the one hand, the language and the evaluation of the studies, on the other hand, make the task difficult. Dacougna has clarified that validation is a very long and expensive process, and that in most cases they are passed the aptitude test. “It’s a drama, it’s very well-prepared people, but here they are in a very poor state and they don’t have the strength to start studying to validate the title. And without that, it’s as if you don’t have learning, they can’t work on what they’ve learned, which creates a migrant stereotype with few studies.” However, he has recognized that there are few women in our country with university studies, since, as a result of the colonizations, they have more relations with France or the United Kingdom and they frequent France or North America.

Senegalese Fatima Ndiaye arrived in Bilbao after graduating from high school and, at the age of 18, underwent university studies in the Basque capital. However, things were slower than expected: “I didn’t know how the system worked here, if you come from another country, you have to make selectivity first. That made me lose my years. I had to do the Training Cycle Administration and Finance and helped me improve the Spanish that I had started studying in Senegal.” He has not finished his university studies yet, but at the end he plans to do a master's degree.

Some have lost their studies because they have no papers: “If you have to survive, you drop out of school.” The “lack of learning” causes Black African women to occupy unskilled jobs and often suffer racismo.Para from working in households, for example, stereotypes have been imposed: that black women are not so loving, that they cannot take good care of people, and that they are wilder and rebellious, because they do not accept the working conditions of some hogares.En as a result, many are dedicated to commerce,

Relationships with renewed partners

The migration of black women has led to changes in relationships: they claim that the partner should be based on the exchange between equals. In Africa, for example, men in general do not work at home and, seeing that those here are doing more and more, they ask their husbands to participate in household chores, arguing that they are in a new environment. Many men are taking the step, but because women are so internalized that their jobs are, it's hard for them to ask. “They are guilty of moving the borders of areas that belong to women and men,” says Dacougna. On the other hand, they intend to integrate into daily life the dialogue between their partners and the public manifestations of love between them and their children.

Changes are also taking place in Africa. According to Dacougna, the fact that women have more access to education and go to university changes the way they relate, think and identify. Greater economic autonomy has led to changes in the young population.

Ndiaye belongs to this new generation, Dakar, born and educated. Here she has had to answer many questions and face many stereotypes about the place of women in Africa, but she has pointed out that her childhood and adolescence have not been so different from that of her friends in Euskal Herria. “It is the Dakar capital and there is another way of life compared to the rural environment; in the countryside some women do not go to school, most are dedicated to domestic tasks, because they have less development and resources”.

Customs to leave it behind

Genital mutilation is one of the customs that Black African women have left behind with migration, and they have also begun to fight it. “They know that this is contrary to women’s human rights and they don’t want their children to suffer,” Dacougna said.

Work is also under way against polygamy, which is deeply rooted in African countries, especially young people. In this case, polygyny is precisely that the husband has more than one woman. In many countries this model of marriage is legal, but according to the intercultural intermediary, young women make it clear to their husbands that if the marriage is not monogamous, they will not marry, running the risk of being single. “As women are planted, the couple often signs monogamy, but then the man marries another woman through traditional rites.” Most of the women interviewed by Dacougna (seven out of eight) are against polygyny. “I believe that one of the main reasons that cause the family to dissolve and leave the children alone is polygamy. Many children are left out of the system, because even if the mother does what she can to keep her child, the father spends a month here, another one there and the third one somewhere else, she can't. In addition, AIDS and other diseases are widespread in Africa and if the mother dies, the children drift, one with the grandmother, the other with the aunt, the mother…”. One of the interviewees defended polygamy, which has lived at home, that in Senegal the number of women is greater than that of men, and that it is selfish that one should marry and not give option to others.

In our country, polygamy is not legal, so men refuse to do so if they talk about polygamy. They have to look for other solutions: they take out another marriage certificate that claims to be monogamous, and one of the wives – usually the youngest – comes as an official wife; the others stay in the country of origin, take turns or come with tourist visas. The latter become migrants without documents.

The value of being a married woman is one of the reasons for polygamy. “In Senegal, even though women are more independent and working today, they are already remembering that I am 24 years old and not married. I see everybody thinking about the wedding and me, instead, no. There is more social pressure, not only from the family, but from the society that looks at what you do,” says Ndiay.

Maternity femininity

According to Dacougna, marriage is valued for having children, but motherhood has more meaning for black women: “It is the basis of femininity, femininity is consolidated through motherhood.” It's one of the things that has the most value in Africa, and the more kids there are, the more status women will have. The need to adapt to the new environment, the existence of a smaller network of support for children and unstable living conditions have forced women to have fewer children in the Basque Country. However, Dacougna is angered by the fact that there are so many children for financial aid: “It’s a stereotype that women have created to represent women who are ignorant, uneducated and dependent on their husbands and has nothing to do with it.”

The children here educated are often African for people. “The Basque society has to reflect and recognize that the black children who are here are Basques, who have been born here, who only know this. They are told that they are Africans and partly they are, but here they have been socialized,” says Dacougna. The inter-cultural mediator believes that in our society we must work hard for diversity.

Fear is a feeling intimately linked to the migratory process of black women. Most of them intend to return to their homeland, Ndiay, for example, wants to return to Dakar at the end of their studies, but are concerned: “I came out very young, I live alone, I am a very independent person, I own myself, and it’s hard to come back, because even if it doesn’t change mindset, you see many different things. Will I adapt to society? You're afraid." But they don't lack courage, and the young Senegalese is clear about it. “In life, it’s about testing.”