33 Countries of Origin’ Profiles

Ivory Coast are cone-shaped with thatched r oofs; walls are generally made of mud in a wooden frame.12 About half the population is located in the urban areas, the rich people live in multi-storey homes or skyscrapers with a lot of facilities; but the rest are poor and live in overcrowded slums without running water, electricity or other modern conveniences. In certain rural areas many children do not have access to education , higher education is very prestigious and available only to a select minority of the population (university education is available only in Abidjan). People wear both traditional and Western clothes: in the urban areas most wear Western clothing as pants or blue jeans and shirts; many women still wear the traditional brightly colored dresses (pagnes) with matching head scarves, specially in the rural areas while men have long, beautiful robes for ceremonial occasions. Whether the family lives in an urban or rural setting, the extended family is the basic social unit. Each ethnic group has its own traditions, collective ceremonies and rituals are important to many indigenous religions, and include dancing, ancestor worship sacrifices, mask carving, fetish priest ceremonies and divination ceremonies: for example, the Poro (society of the sacred grove) initiation ceremony of the Senoufo is a ritual in which every seven years a new group of boys pass through three stages of initiation that are completed when they are in their thirties. Most of the Baoulé practice the scarification as sign of identification or traditional treatments. Between men is common a simple handshake, women instead kiss each other three times on the cheeks. In general, people from Ivory Coast keep slightly less distance between one another when they speak. Village elders are traditionally accorded much respect and eye contact is usually avoided, particularly between father and child, and it is considered rude to stare.. 13 GENDER RELATIONS: Ivory Coast ranks at 136th out of 144 countries worldwide for gender equality in the index of Global Gender Gap 14 . Ivorian Constitution guarantees gender equality and the new Family code redefines power dynamics within marriage by institutionalizing equality between husband and wife, while polygamy was forbidden in 1964 by the new Civil Code. In 2006 was created the Equality and Gender Directorate within the Ministry of the Family, Women and Social Affairs, responsible for coordinating government activities in the promotion and protection of women’s rights and in 2009 the government adopted a National Policy on Equal Opportunities, Equity and Gender to promote a gender approach. 15 There have been numerous projects based around women’s rights and health in Côte d’Ivoire. In 2013, the World Bank held a series of workshops across the nation in an attempt to address problems of systemic inequality. The U.S. in 2014 has commissioned a regional family planning project to increase access to and use of hospitals and health centers in the country. The State has done a lot of efforts to eliminate discriminatory attitudes and traditional harmful practices but there is a persistence of adverse cultural stereotypes as well as patriarchal attitudes, for this reasons the country suffers from widespread gender inequality. Although marriage customs are changing and becoming more Westernized, a large majority engage in traditional native wedding rituals. Divorce, although not common, is socially acceptable among most ethnic groups In rural areas men plow the land and take care of the crops while the women grow vegetables and other basic foods, collect water and fuel, tend to domestic needs and childrearing, spin, weave and produce pottery to sell. In general, men have the most important civic and governmental positions, 12 http://habitat-worldmap.org/en/pais/africa/ivory-coast/ 13 Cote D'ivoire (Cultures of the World) Library Binding – January 1, 2010by Patricia Sheehan , Jacqueline Ong 1 4 http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/economies/#economy=IV 15 http://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/wps/nap1325_cote_d_ivoire.pdf