Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T15:41:14.922Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Women's Movements and Constitution Making after Civil Unrest and Conflict in Africa: The Cases of Kenya and Somalia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2016

Aili Mari Tripp
Aili Mari Tripp*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As numerous conflicts have come to an end in Africa over the past two decades, women's movements have sought to advance a women's rights agenda through peace accords; through constitutional, legislative, and electoral reforms; as well as through the introduction of gender quotas. This article focuses the impact women's movements have had in shaping constitutions after periods of turmoil, particularly in areas of equality, customary law, antidiscrimination, violence against women, quotas, and citizenship rights. It demonstrates how countries that have come out of major civil conflict and violent upheaval in Africa after the mid-1990s—but especially after 2000—have made more constitutional changes with respect to women's rights than other African countries. The second part of the article provides two examples of how women's movements influenced constitutional changes pertaining to gender equality as well as the difficulties they encountered, particularly with respect to the international community.

Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 78 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abdullahi, Abdurahman M. 2009. “Women and the Constitutional Debate in Somalia.” http://www.scribd.com/doc/15421298/Women-and-Constitutional-Debate-in-Somalia#scribd (accessed January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Affi, Ladan. 2003. “Somalia.” In Sub-Saharan Africa: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Women’s Issues Worldwide, ed. Tripp, Aili. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Albertyn, Catherine. 2009. “The Stubborn Persistence of Patriarchy? Gender Equality and Cultural Diversity in South Africa.” Constitutional Court Review 2: 165–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Albertyn, Catherine. 2011. “Gendered Transformation in South African Jurisprudence: Poor Women and the Constitutional Court (Law and Poverty Special Edition).” Stellenbosch Law Review 22 (3) : 591–613.Google Scholar
Andrews, Penelope. “The Stepchild of National Liberation: Women and Rights in the New South Africa.” In Post-Apartheid Constitutions, ed. Andrews, Penelope and Ellmann, Stephen. Johannesburg, South Africa and Athens, OH: Witwatersrand University Press and Ohio University Press, 2001, 326–58.Google Scholar
Cassola, Adèle, Raub, Amy, Foley, Danielle, and Heymann, Jody. 2014. “Where Do Women Stand? New Evidence on the Presence and Absence of Gender Equality in the World's Constitutions.” Politics & Gender 10 (2): 200–35.Google Scholar
Coleman, Felicia V. 2009. “Gender Equality and the Rule of Law in Liberia: Statutory Law, Customary Law, and the Status of Women.” Constituting Equality, ed. Williams, Susan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 195–214.Google Scholar
Cottrell, Jill, and Ghai, Yash. 2007. “Constitution Making and Democratization in Kenya.” Democratization 14 (1): 1–25.Google Scholar
Denzer, LaRay. 1987. “Women in Freetown Politics, 1914–61: A Preliminary Study.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 57 (4): 439–56.Google Scholar
Dini, Shukria. 2012. “Clan Leaders: Major Obstacle to Somali Women's Political Participation.” The 1325 (blog). August 3. http://operation1325.se/en/blogg/clan-leaders-major-obstacle-to-somali-women-s-political-participation (accessed January 22, 2016).Google Scholar
Elmi, Afyare Abdi. “Revisiting the UN-Controlled Constitution-Making Process for Somalia.” e-International Relations, http://www.e-ir.info/2012/09/02/revisiting-the-un-controlled-constitution-making-process-for-somalia/ (accessed February 8, 2016).Google Scholar
Garowe Online. 2012. “Women Discuss Their Role in the Federal Government.” http://allafrica.com/stories/201207200590.html (accessed January 24, 2016).Google Scholar
Ghai, Yash. 2005. “The Constitution Making Process in Kenya.” Presented at African Politics Colloquium, Madison, WI.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Susan F. 1998. Pronouncing & Persevering : Gender and the Discourses of Disputing in an African Islamic Court. Language and Legal Discourse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hollier-Larousse, Juliette. 2000. Somali Women Win Political Emancipation with Parliamentary Quota. Arta Djibouti: Agence France Presse.Google Scholar
Hughes, Melanie. 2009. “Armed Conflict, International Linkages, and Women's Parliamentary Representation in Developing Countries.” Social Problems 56 (1): 174–204.Google Scholar
IOL. 2003. “Male Leaders Have Only Created Wars.” IOL News, September 30. http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/male-leaders-have-only-created-wars-1.113801?ot=inmsa.ArticlePrintPageLayout.ot (accessed January 24, 2016).Google Scholar
IRIN. 2004. “Women Demand Greater Role in New Government.” November 29. http://www.irinnews.org/fr/report/52243/somalia-women-demand-greater-role-in-new-government (accessed January 23, 2016).Google Scholar
IRIN. 2012. “Inching Forward on Women's Rights.” April 13. http://www.irinnews.org/report/95284/somalia-inching-forward-on-women-s-rights (accessed January 24, 2016).Google Scholar
Irving, Helen. 2008. Gender and the Constitution Equity and Agency in Comparative Constitutional Design. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jagwanth, Saras, and Murray, Christina. 2005. “No Nation Can Be Free When One Half of It is Enslaved: Constitutional Equality for Women in South Africa.” In The Gender of Constitutional Jurisprudence, ed. Baines, Beverley and Rubio-Marín, Ruth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 230.Google Scholar
Kabira, Wanjiku. 2012. Time for Harvest: Women and Constitution Making in Kenya. Nairobi: University of Nairobi Press.Google Scholar
Khadiagala, Lynn. 2001. “The Failure of Popular Justice in Uganda: Local Councils and Women's Property Rights.” Development and Change 32 (1): 55–76.Google Scholar
Mabandla, Brigitte. 1995. “Women in South Afria and the Constitution-Making Process.” In Women's Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives, ed. Peters, Julie and Wolper, Andrea. New York and London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Maingi, Grace. 2011. “The Kenyan Constitutional Reform Process: A Case Study on the Work of Fida Kenya in Securing Women's Rights.” Feminist Africa 15: 63–81.Google Scholar
Maluwa, Tiyanjana. 1999. “Implementing the Principle of Gender Equality through the Law: Some Lessons from Southern Africa.” International Journal of Discrimination and the Law 13 (4) : 249–68.Google Scholar
Matembe, Miria. 2002. Gender, Politics, and Constitution Making in Uganda. Kampala: Fountain Publishers.Google Scholar
Mati, Jacob Mwathi. 2012. “Social Movements and Socio-Political Change in Africa: The Ufungamano Initiative and Kenyan Constitutional Reform Struggles (1999–2005).” Voluntas 23 (1): 63–84.Google Scholar
Mohamed, Mahmoud. 2012. “Somali Women Fight for Promised Share of Parliamentary Seats.” Sabah Online 2012.Google Scholar
Mutua, Athena. 2006. “Gender Equality and Women's Solidarity across Religious, Ethnic, and Class Differences in the Kenyan Constitutional Review Process.” William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law 13 (1): 1–128.Google Scholar
Ndegwa, Stephen, Mwagi, Patrick, Kasera, Susan, Owuor, Henry, and Karanja, Iris, eds. 2012. History of Constitution Making in Kenya. Nairobi: Media Development Association.Google Scholar
Nyamu-Musembi, Celestine. 2006. “Ruling out Gender Equality? The Post-Cold War Rule of Law Agenda in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Third World Quarterly 27 (7): 1193–207.Google Scholar
Scribner, Druscilla, and Lambert, Priscilla A.. 2010. “Constitutionalizing Difference: A Case Study Analysis of Gender Provisions in Botswana and South Africa.” Politics & Gender 6 (1): 37–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Somali Midnimo.com. 2012. “Women Walk out of Draft Constitution Ratification Conference.” July 31.Google Scholar
Ssenyonjo, Manisuli. 2007. “Women's Rights to Equality and Non-Discrimination: Discriminatory Family Legislation in Uganda and the Role of Uganda's Constitutional Court.” International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 21 (3): 341–72.Google Scholar
Tripp, Aili Mari. 2000. Women & Politics in Uganda. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Tripp, Aili Mari. 2009. “Conflicting Agendas: Women’s Rights and Customary Law in Africa Today.” In Constituting Equality, ed. Williams, Susan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 173–94.Google Scholar
Tripp, Aili Mari. 2010. “Legislating Gender Based Violence in Post-Conflict Africa.” Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 5 (3): 7–20.Google Scholar
Tripp, Aili Mari. 2015. Women and Power in Postconflict Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tripp, Aili, Casimiro, Isabel, Kwesiga, Joy, and Mungwa, Alice. 2009. African Women's Movements: Transforming Political Landscapes. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Turrittin, Jane. 1993. “Aoua Kéita and the Nascent Women's Movement in the French Soudan.” African Studies Review 36 (1): 59–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar