Senegal

Address: Sicap Mermoz No. 7416, Dakar, Senegal

Tel: (+221) 77643 90 29; (+221-8) 25 82 45

Contact: Ms. Magatte Sy Gaye

Building women’s capacity for effective land ownership and inheritance in poor areas, a project with Réseau Africain Pour le Développement Intégré (RADI), Senegal

This project was implemented by RADI to address discrimination suffered by Senagalese women in relation to inheritance and land ownership. Although women’s equal right to inheritance is recognized in the Constitution, certain interpretations of Muslim laws and customary laws continue to discriminate against women in Senegal. The project was undertaken in the Senegal River Valley, using three strategies: (a) social mobilization, (b) capacity building, and (c) advocacy with decision-makers.

Reseau Siggil Jigeen

This network seeks for violence against women to be understood as a human rights violation within Senegal; the revision and amendment of laws that are discriminatory to women; the passage of laws that promote gender equality; and women’s increased participation in decision-making processes. The name Siggil Jigeen has much significance within Senegalese ‘culture’; it expresses the promotion of the status of women. ‘Siggil’ means enhance, rehabilitate, promote, defend women, and by extension, the family and society.

Groupe de Recherche sur les Femmes et les Lois au Sénégal (GREFELS) (Research Group on Women and the Law in Senegal)

GREFELS’ mission is to promote feminist research and campaigning in Senegal. They focus on issues related to citizenship and law reform (including those of family, sexual and reproductive rights of women), laws and cultural norms and religious gender-based violence (including forced marriage, domestic violence, and fundamentalisms), trafficking and the sexual exploitation of women and girls, and female migration. GREFELS is also the WLUML RCO-AME.

Emails: wlumlame@gmail.com

Comité de Lutte Contre les Violences faites aux Femmes et aux Enfants (CLVF) (Committee for the Prevention of Violence Against Women and Children)

The Committee’s aim is to eradicate all forms of violence against women and children (sexual, physical, moral, forced and early marriages, trafficking, sexual exploitaion, etc.). They also work to support women and children victions of violence (through their own counselling centre), as well as monitor that laws are enforced. They hold informative talks and training seminars, as well as annual/bi-annual conferences with, for example, priests, Islamic scholars, sociologists, and laywers.

Association pour la Promotion de la Femme Sénégalaise (APROFES) (Association for the Advancement of Senegalese Women)

APROFES works to promote women’s rights; women’s access to resources; women’s participation in decision-making; poverty reduction; and fight violence against women within the framework of women’s rights as human rights. They work with local women’s groups, women’s victims of violence, and women leaders and entrepreneurs; they have a people-centred advocacy response anchored in the community, where it can have more widespread and long-lasting effects.

Traditional marriage practices as determinants of women’s land rights in Sub-Saharan Africa: A review of research based on research by Jean-Philippe Platteau, Anita Abraham, Frederic Gaspart, and Luc Stevens

This article looks at land tenure systems as well as changes in traditional marriage institutions and social security in Senegal and Burkina Faso and argues that it is crucial that women’s social security and bargaining power within the traditional institutions be preserved while introducing new institutional arrangements for land tenure.

“Fundamentalisms, globalisation and women’s human rights in Senegal”

This paper mentions how women’s land rights are affected by fundamentalist movements, which do not respect women’s rights and status as autonomous citizens.

Les femmes et la terre

English Translation of Women and Land Tenure (unpublished manuscript).

“Land law and the transition to capitalism: natural history of a Senegalese case study”

Snyder’s three papers above examine how land legislation in Senegal institutionalises the transition to capitalism.