Situation of women in Senegal

Senegal is quite a patriarchal society in which women have less rights than men. For decades now women (and some men) activists are struggling to change this inequality.

Awa Wade Toure of the ‘Union Démocratique des Enseignants du Sénégal’ (the teacher union) wrote a piece for the 2003 women conference in which she described several aspects of this inequality as expressed in the legal system:

“Conforming to legal regulations, the Senegalese woman –mother, married or unmarried woman– can neither take charge for her husband or children concerning medical treatment or transport nor does she have the right to receive family allowances or tax relief, unless the paternal power is transferred from the husband to her by court decision. This discrimination deprives women workers of benefits her male colleagues profit from, of benefits which would allow her to make the best of her duties as wife and mother, to provide for her family.

All issues concerning the administration of the basic cell of our society are laid down in the family code. This law determines that the man is the only head of the family (marital power: article 152), and consequently that during marriage, paternal power is attributed to the father (article 277).

While women are ever more present in the labour market, they are confronted with discriminations concerning their social security, their fiscal situation, and their career. A woman in the civil service:

• is not entitled to family allowance in her pay;
• cannot take charge of her child or husband in case of illness or for transport;
• in case of her death, her surviving dependants do not receive pensions;
• cannot give her nationality to her non-Senegalese husband, and her legal conditions concerning her child are unjust.”

The legal system is only one sphere of society in which women are discriminated against. Also within the education system, the family, on the workplace women face discrimination, violence and other forms of injustice on a daily basis. Women lack decision-making power and bear a triple burden as workers in the factory, home/extended family/community and are primary caretakers of their children. Additionally women face various forms of harassment and violence (physical, moral, economic, sexual) at work and at home.

Women trade unionists see the issue of gender as critical to the democratisation of unions. That is, there cannot be democratic unions without consideration and inclusion of gender issues. “Gender is not on the agenda of unions and we have to put it there” say women activists.

The barriers to women’s participation in unions are huge. Presently the culture within unions is not conducive to the promotion of women into leadership positions and bargaining demands often do not include the issues most important to women. These problems cannot be tackled without taking into account the broader context of women oppression in the Senegalese (and West African) societies therefore we focus not merely on the trade union environment, but tackle the Senegalese society at whole.