American Journal of Rural Development, 2013, Vol. 1, No. 2, 19-25 Available online at http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajrd/1/2/1 © Science and Education Publishing DOI:10.12691/ajrd-1-2-1 Gender Issue and Urban Renewal Development: An Examination of Challenges of Evicted Market Women in Lagos State, Nigeria Yusuff Sherifat Olabisi * Sociology Department, Lagos State University, Lagos State, Nigeria *Corresponding author: soyusuf@yahoo.co.uk Received January 15, 2013; Revised April 28, 2013; Accepted May 01, 2013 Abstract Literature has revealed that in any urban renewal programmes, women's interest are not usually incorporated as many women were usually left in horrendous position and face lots of challenges. This paper therefore examines challenges faced by the women traders that were forcefully evicted from market stalls by urban renewal programmes in the study area. The paper adopted qualitative method of data collection. Key Informant Interviewing (KII) and In Depth Interviewing (IDI) methods were used to collect information from eighty respondents that purposively chosen through snowball method. The paper adopted social exclusion theory to discuss the problem. The information gathered revealed that, the programme was impacting negatively on market women and in turn has profound effect in their capacity to take care of households‟ economy. Major challenges face by the women respondents include inability to pay for new market shops, securing another start- up, transferring some of their children to live with relatives and constant harassments by local government officials in an attempt to dissuade them from reorganization.. Information revealed that women respondents were strategizing in order to overcome the present challenges by devising various coping methods. However, those survival methods may impact negatively on their health and serious implications for the future of their children. The paper proposes that government and policy makers should adequately address this matter of backlash that results from its interventions in mega-city development by providing alternative market spaces at a subsidized rate to the affected women. This would in turn enable the evicted market women traders subsidize household economy and provide motherly care to their children. Keywords: urban renewal, women, markets, trade, eviction, Lagos State, Nigeria 1. Introduction The paper examines the relationship between gender and urban development programmes with particular reference to the multiple challenges faced by women traders recently affected by urban renewal programmes carried by the Lagos State, Nigeria. According to [1] and [2], gender is socially constructed experience, not a biological imperative. Sociologists distinguish between the terms sex and gender to emphasize this point. Sex refers to the biological identity as male or female. Gender refers to the social identities attributed to women and men. Gender is rooted in social institutions and results in the patterns within society that structure the relationships between women and men and that give them differing positions of advantages and disadvantages within institutions [1]. Thus, there is relationship development programmes and gender issue. Gender based urban development is about promoting cities that respond equally to men and women. However, because women experience cities differently, meeting women‟s needs become critical to promoting sustainable and equitable urban development [3]. Gander is however, not a „core competence‟ among urban local institutions or managers, who remain largely concerned with the provisioning of basic services. Besides, gender expertise is mostly seen to be within the domain of conventional women‟s programmes/agencies such as Women and Child Development. Building gender friendly cities will require the intertwining of gender knowledge within local government institutions so that these can better respond to gender needs, in particular address requirements of women, especially those living in slums and low resource communities [4], The Urban development programme is generally assumed to be gender neutral, that is, providing equal access to men and women, but the idea is however misplaced. The physical infrastructure projects that seemingly respond to diverse standards for men and women may actually have dissimilar impacts on the two groups, particularly on women's group [5]. For instance, [6] opined that when housing programme and upgrading schemes present opportunities for the improvement of human settlement, women are often excluded. Projects are designed without references to women „economic, domestic or community responsibilities. Policymakers only focused on providing for the needs of presumed male head of the family especially in developing countries, virtually, ignoring the large number of women who head, or maintain households.