Sierra Leone’s Women Farmers Use a Custom Called Bora to Access Land – but It’s Making Them More Vulnerable

Bora – a type of thank you gift – is a Sierra Leonean custom of respect that is often used in relation to land. For instance, informal farmers pay bora to landowners to be able to farm on their land.

But bora has changed over the years and is having a negative impact on women, who are responsible for much of the west African country’s farming. In Sierra Leone, land ownership – and therefore use of land for farming – vests in men.

Women’s access to land for sustainable livelihoods is the subject of…