Senegal baskets are hot, but women weavers ask where's the money?

Dakar

Women in northwest Senegal continue the tradition of basket weaving, using techniques passed down through generations. Despite the growing popularity of their baskets abroad, the artisans receive little profit due to low local prices, middlemen, and competition from imitations produced outside Senegal.

The craftswomen are urging government intervention to make raw materials more accessible and to establish a protected designation of origin for 'Senegal baskets.' They argue that such measures would help ensure fair compensation and preserve the cultural identity of their handmade products.

Why aren't Senegal craftswomen seeing profits?

Gathered in the shade of a mango tree, these women in northwest Senegal are making baskets. Crafted out of threaded coiled reeds, they use techniques passed down from mother to daughter for generations. My grandparents and parents also practiced this trade. My mother introduced me to basket weaving at a very young age and even when I came here to live with my husband, I continued making them and selling them at the Nagae market. The margins on what they sell are very low. Now the artisans are asking authorities to support the manufacture and trade of the traditional baskets and the women who make them. We're requesting support from the government to make raw materials more accessible and to have customers who buy the baskets at reasonable prices. We need funding because this is the only trade we have. And today many young people have left the village to look for work elsewhere. Here in Senegal a large laundry style basket might sell for $23 at a market after passing through a middleman. Abroad they go for $150 but the profit doesn't reach the women who make them. In my opinion baskets are sold at ridiculously low prices in Senegal. Senegalese women take their time to make these baskets by hand without any machinery. As the basket's popularity grows, so does the competition. Many so-called Senegal baskets sold on the international market are made not in Senegal but in Vietnam. I would love for Senegal to have what Ghana just recently had for the kente cloth. Which is, if it's not from Ghana you can't call it kente. If it's not from Senegal you can't call it Senegal basket. If it's not champagne from Champagne you can't call it champagne. I would like to have Appellation Controle so that Senegal baskets are from Senegal. For a craft imbued with so much national identity, it doesn't seem a lot to ask.

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