Monday, August 24, 2009
Malian women who did not attend the rally (photo: Gregory Hartl/WHO)
Some Sunni Muslim men and women are protesting a proposed law in Mali that would put the two sexes on equal footing for the first time. If the measure—adopted by the Malian parliament but awaiting President Amadou Toumani Toure’s signature—goes into effect, women would no longer be required to obey their husbands. This does not sit well with some Muslim women who say the law conflicts with their religious ideals.
“We have to stick to the Koran,” Hadja Sapiato Dembele of the National Union of Muslim Women’s Associations told the BBC. “A man must protect his wife, a wife must obey her husband.” According to Dembele, only a “tiny minority” of women—the “intellectuals”—are in favor the new law. “The poor and illiterate women of this country—the real Muslims—are against it,” she added.
About 50,000 Malians, including some women, attended a demonstration in Mali’s capital, Bamako, to express opposition to the equal rights measure. The rally was organized by the nation’s High Islamic Council.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Mali Protest Against Women's Law (BBC News)
Mali Demonstrators Protest Laws Strengthening Women’s Rights (Agence France-Presse)
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