“We Are Not Hopeless Women”: Expectations of Freedom among Female Head Porters (kayayei) in Ghana

The aim of this article is to understand how the concept of freedom can be expressed and instantiated by marginalized young migrant women known as kayayei in urban Ghana. These women opt to leave northern Ghana, alone and without a male companion, to work in the country’s main cities mainly as porters in urban markets. The first part of the article describes the historical relationship between the north and the south of Ghana, highlighting the pervasiveness of racialization, discrimination, exploitation and dispossession affecting the northerners. In the second part, it gives a voice to the kayayei women, considering their individual trajectories, experiences and expectations, and examining the tension between desires, hopes and constraints. The final section discusses the kind of life imagined for them by public discourse, political institutions and non-governmental organizations seeking to improve their living conditions and to reduce migration.