ISLAMIC (MICRO)FINANCE

Perhaps the most vigorous defense of family empowerment comes from IsDB’s Islamic Research
and Training Institute, which recently explained:
“Islam promotes the concept of ‘family empowerment’ by exhorting men and women to
play their respective roles in seeking economic and social well-being of all members of the
family. Indeed, the ‘women only’ approach to conventional microenterprise development
and poverty alleviation is alien to Islamic principles and values. Further, there is the
possibility that women may be doubly exploited instead of being empowered where they
are made to take the loan related liability while the male member in the family manages to
‘pocket’ the cash. Therefore, there is merit in the argument that Islamic MFIs should aim to
empower families and not women alone.” 94
However, the “family” unit is not fixed. In South Asia, the poor typically live as joint families
where the number of dependents can be highly mobile. The division of expenses in a shared
household can change frequently, particularly during lean times or periods of high expense, such
as holidays or illness. 95 The contingency and complexity surrounding “family” highlights the utility
of ethnographic research, including methods of long-duration local immersion and participantobservation,
to understand the complexity and nuance that can evade even qualitative elements of
randomized control trials. During fieldwork conducted over 2010-2014, I observed the issues
below in the daily lives of female microfinance clients in rural and small-town Muslim
communities in Bangladesh and Pakistan. These issues indicate that unique circumstances for
female-headed households and female clients should encourage IMFIs’ greater strategic
engagement with women, rather than a deferral to the “family.”
Challenges for female-headed households
• The absence or delinquency of men poses a particular challenge to notions of “family” as
an intact, bounded, and mutually supportive unit. In the Bangladeshi slum where I was
based, female clients whose husbands had deserted them or taken other wives were unable
to protect and maintain control of their money from these husbands, who would
sporadically visit and demand money. 96 This is partly due to shame and secrecy
surrounding spousal abandonment. Women would tell visitors that their husbands worked
in different towns or abroad, when their husbands may have left them or taken other wives.
This also meant that new IMFI field officers could not necessarily immediately tell which
households were female-headed.
• Some households are functionally female-headed even if a husband is present, due to a
lack of spousal support, illness, alcoholism, and/or unemployment. Research interviews are
usually conducted in the presence of neighbors or family, but deeply sensitive information
was typically only shared when I spoke with a woman by herself, and after establishing
trust. Accordingly, some sensitive information was only shared with female IMFI field
officers (in the case of the Pakistani IMFI that employed women). However, women are
rarely field officers, especially in rural areas.
94 IRTI/Thompson Reuters 2014: 21
95 In the small sample (n=50) of a long-form, qualitative survey I conducted among randomly-selected microfinance
clients in Pakistan, 18% of interviewees reported that the number of household dependents shifts frequently. 36%
said that the division of household expenses between relatives shifts every month/sometimes.
96 Kustin 2014
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ISLAMIC MICROFINANCE: CONTEXT, CULTURE, PROMISES, CHALLENGES | www.gatesfoundation.org