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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Sudanese Women's Union: Strategies for Emancipation and the Counter Movement |
Author: | Ibrahim, Fatima Ahmed |
Year: | 1996 |
Periodical: | Ufahamu |
Volume: | 24 |
Issue: | 2-3 |
Period: | Fall |
Pages: | 3-20 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Sudan |
Subjects: | feminism Women's Issues Politics and Government organizations Equality and Liberation Law, Legal Issues, and Human Rights |
Abstract: | In 1952, the Sudanese Women's Union (SWU) was founded. It was the first and only grassroots organization in the whole of Sudan, with branches all over the country. It established relationships with international women's organizations and, in 1955, it started to publish the 'Women's Voice Magazine'. After the military coup in 1958 the Union was banned and went underground, reemerging in the wake of the October 1964 revolution, in which women had taken part en masse. Two years after Nimeiri's military coup of 1969, the SWU went underground again. In 1983, the Islamic Front entered Nimeiri's government. Since then, the main purpose of the Union has been to fight against the interpretation of Islam propagated by Sudan's Islamic leaders, but not against Islam itself. The author, who now lives in London as a political refugee, has come to the conclusion that new tactics are needed to solve women's problems and eradicate discrimination. She recently founded the Democratic Front for Peace, Women's Equality and Environment, which is open to women and men. Its aim is to form branches wherever there are Sudanese women and men. At the international level, the author thinks the shortest way for all women in the world to gain equality with men is to organize themselves around the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Ref. |