Kano: Women mop up cash in laundry biz

Weekly Trust found out that the women that are more engaged in the business are either widows or married ones who could not get enough funds to start businesses of their chioce. Instead of staying idle, they resorted to washing people’s clothes in order to get money. Further investigations by Weekly Trust revealed that middle-aged […]

Weekly Trust found out that the women that are more engaged in the business are either widows or married ones who could not get enough funds to start businesses of their chioce. Instead of staying idle, they resorted to washing people’s clothes in order to get money.

Further investigations by Weekly Trust revealed that middle-aged women and young mothers constitute a majority in the business. Some of them wash the clothes and iron them for the owners while others simply wash without ironing and others only iron without washing.

Malama Ma’inna Adam, who is engaged in the business, said she started the business a decade ago, and since then, it has continued to be her only source of income. “For the past ten years, I have had no other business except washing people’s clothes.” She also opined that abject poverty and lack of funds to start a better business made her to start the laundry business. “It is abject poverty and lack of capital to start a better business that made me to go into the laundry business,” she said.

Ma’inna said before the laundry business, she had tried other petty businesses like commercial pounding of grains but could not earn much from it. “I was formerly pounding people’s grains as a business, but the gains were nothing to write home about. I was paid two kobo for one mudu (measuring bowl) of grains,” she said.

With her new business, Ma’inna said she now makes not less than N6,000 in a month, and with the money, she is able to take care of her needs without waiting for her husband to do that for her. She said she is satisfied with what she is getting from the business, but that anytime she is able to get a better one, she would leave the laundry business.

Additional investigations by our correspondent revealed that apart from earning money from the business, the women are getting free clothes from their customers. Used clothes that are no longer needed are given to them free by their customers. “Apart from paying us, some of our customers also give us used clothes, which we either use or give to our next of kin in the villages,” one of the women said.

Like any other human endeavour, the laundry business is not always smooth. The major problem in the business is the issue of water. A laundry woman noted that the lack of water is her problem. “I have to pay some of the almajiri to fetch water for me. I pay five kobo per bucket. Sometimes, I’m forced to leave the work because of lack of water,” she stated.

Another bottleneck, according to her, is human nature. She explained that as a human being, she is so lazy sometimes that she would just not want to do any work that day. Or she might do it but not in large quantity as she would have done if she was feeling hale and hearty.

Ma’inna who’s a middle-aged woman further stated that during harmattan seasons, the work is usually more difficult, as using cold water to wash freezes their hands. She added that during harmattan seasons, she usually charges more money. “I charge more during harmattan seasons, because it is usually very hard to wash with cold water.”

Weekly Trust learnt that unlike the men that wash all types of clothes, women restrict theirs to washing only women and children’s attires. For every set of clothes, N5 is charged. However, during the harmattan season, it goes up to N10 per set. Another thing that Weekly Trust learnt is that women charge less money than their male counterparts. While under normal times, the men charge up to N30 per pair of clothes, N60 if the clothes are to be ironed and even up to N100 if overflowing garments are included, the women on the other hand charge as low as N5 per set or N10 if it is to be ironed.

Malama Amina of Yan Kifi in Gwale Local Government Area said she has been washing clothes for over five years. She said she was doing the work together with her daughter. She explained that the people who give their clothes for washing usually bring along enough soap or detergent. She added that the reason why she insists that the person must supply the washing soap is because she sometimes lacks the money to buy the soap herself and that that could delay her work. Amina, like most of the other women in the laundry business, only washes the clothes without having to iron.

According to her, the business is not that lucrative, adding that she is only doing it because she has no option. She revealed that in a day after expending much of her energy, she ends up getting just N100, adding that to get N200 in a day is not an easy task.

When asked if clothes usually get missing, Amina said they hardly have such problem since they are washing the clothes in their homes. She, however, stated that sometimes, there could be a mix-up of people’s clothes, but even that is not very frequent.

She further explained that anytime they receive a woman’s clothes, they always ensure that they are washed and spread separately from those of others’. This attitude, she said, has aided in making the work easier and less problematic. The widow called on the state government to expand its empowerment programmes to reach women in their homes, so that they can be economically empowered. She said anytime big money comes her way, she would stop the business and start a better one.