Value 0.540 (2012) Maternal mortality (per 100,000) 370 (2010) Females over 25 with secondary education 4.6% (2010) | Rank 115th Women in parliament 41.6% (2012) Women in labour force 66.1% (2011) | |
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Women in Senegal have a traditional social status as shaped by local custom and religion.
Contents
History
The traditional division of labour in Senegal saw women responsible for household tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and childcare. They were also responsible for a large share of agricultural work, including weeding and harvesting, for such common crops as rice. Women of the nobility used to be influential in political scenes. This is partly because matrilineage was the means for a prince to become king (particularly in the Wolof kingdoms). Such lingeer as Yacine Boubou, Ndate Yalla and her sister Njembeut Mbodji are hailed as inspirations for contemporary Senegalese women.
In recent decades, economic change and urbanization has led to many young men migrating to the cities, such as Dakar. Rural women have become increasingly involved in managing village forestry resources and operating millet and rice mills. The government's rural development agency aims to organize village women and involve them more actively in the development process. Women play a prominent role in village health committees and prenatal and postnatal programs. In urban areas, despite women's second-class status within Islam, cultural change has led to women entering the labour market as office and retail clerks, domestic workers and unskilled workers in textile mills and tuna-canning factories.
Non-government organizations are also active in promoting women's economic opportunities. Micro-financing loans for women's businesses have improved the economic situation of many.
Senegal ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, as well as the additional protocol. Senegal is also a signatory of the African Charter of Human and People's Rights, which was adopted during the 2003 African Union Summit. However, Senegalese feminists have been critical of the government's lack of action in enforcing the protocols, conventions and other texts that have been signed as a means of protecting women's rights.
Disparities in status
Women in Senegal face a number of disparities in their social status. Women have high rates of illiteracy. They make up less than 10% of the formal labour force. Female genital mutilation is a persistent practise in some rural areas, despite being outlawed by the constitution of 2001. Women's legal rights are blunted by such practises as polygyny marriages, and Islamic law involving property ownership.