The women give the protests against the government of Al-Bashir in the Sudan a personal touch. Together with the men, they come in for General concerns, but also gender-specific abuses.
White is the color of the lost virtues of simplicity, peace, but also of beauty. It is the color, in the Sudanese women wrapped themselves in front of the seizure of power by Omar al-Baschirs in the year 1993. During his reign, the women refused more and more to wear the white Robe, as the country would have lost under the new ruler, his political innocence. In this innocence, the Sudan, want to remind women that go these days on the streets to protest against the abuses in their homeland.
#White March, “white marsh”, is, accordingly, the Motto, under which you have joined together, in the white Robe for the rights of women and of the whole country.
“Already, under previous dictatorships we, the women participating in the protests, took to the streets to demand our rights,” says Eman, a Sudanese activist, in an interview with DW. For safety reasons, the young woman wants to call only your first name. Always they had been at the forefront of the protests. Earlier, the women had gone with the men on the road to the withdrawal of British colonial power and to call for the introduction of fundamental rights. Meanwhile, the concerns had changed: “The current military rule operates in the name of Islam against the women-oriented policy of repression. It has adopted laws that are directed explicitly and exclusively against women.”
A long list of grievances
The protests in Khartoum were worn from the beginning, strong women, observed Philipp Jahn, head of the local office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung: “women have initiated the protest marches often. On a kind of long-sustained cry of protest trains were in motion. In the marches they are widely visible, often in the front row.”
The list of abuses against women, is a long one. So they don’t protest only for General concerns such as the overcoming foundations of an authoritarian government style and the strengthening of the human and civil rights. Likewise, you turn against legal and policy requirements, which is the suffering, especially women.
To the circumcision. According to the world health organization, 87 percent of all women have suffered in the Sudan between 15 and 49 years female genital mutilation. However, 40 per cent of the mentioned age group, according to information from the women’s rights organization “Terre des Femmes in favour of at least good” of this practice.
The Protest is also female: Sudanese women to demonstrate in the city of Omduran, 10. March 2019
Similarly, the Protest, the protesting women against forced marriage and the possibility of rates of girls from the tenth year marriage. Twelve percent of all girls are married a study by the children’s Fund, UNICEF, even before they are 15 years old. Around a third before the age of 18. Year of life married.
Against forced marriage and violence in the marriage
In addition, the Protest of women against the harsh actions of the police against demonstrators is on the inside. A Twitter user indicates a woman who is said to have been cut off at a police station, the hair guard.
Likewise, the women, the fact that marital rape is not recognised as a criminal offence. The process to then 19-years-old Noura Hussein in may of 2018, led by the Sudanese Public, in which needs of women, under the prevailing legislation. The young woman was married at the age of 15 years, from their family against their will. When she refused to participate in the wedding night, her groom, raped, this, you, with the help of several men. As he pushed her in the following night stabbed him. By a court Noura was initially sentenced to death. An appeals court reversed this judgment and sentenced her instead to five years in prison.
Cases such as these, however, are rather limited in rural regions. “In the bourgeois circles in the cities the women, however, are self-aware and emancipated,” says Philipp Jahn. “This Segment hear, the women are well trained.” Also will there differences between women and men in social, Jahn. At the police station, these women enjoy a certain amount of respect: “you are controlled, for example, rare – also because the police officers fear to get themselves in Trouble because of inappropriate behavior.”
Under pressure: Staatspräsuident Oamr al-Bashir
The Regime is afraid of female education
However, the situation of women had deteriorated during the government of Omar al-Baschirs overall, says the activist, Eman in an interview with DW: “Many women have not been sentenced to physical punishments, such as floggings, because they dressed in the opinion of the courts is appropriate. Others were condemned because they left you, to have drunk alcohol.”
The reason for the crackdown is clear, says Eman. “If women are educated, they can fight back better. They are formed politically, this can be a Regime downright dangerous. That’s why it’s trying to stop them from the traditional roles to break out.”