Sudanese women activists are disappointed at a lack of progress on women’s issues, after 11 months following the protests that toppled autocrat Omar al-Bashir.
To show their frustration, dozens of women protested in front of the Justice Ministry in Khartoum on Sunday, which is International Women’s Day.
The protesters presented a letter to the ministry calling for changes to laws deemed discriminatory against women.
“Nothing has been done to meet women’s demands,” Zeineb Badreddine, one of the protest organizers, said on Saturday.
An activist involved from the start of the protest movement that ended Bashir’s three-decade rule last April, Badreddine has now returned to teaching almost 30 years after being fired for her “progressive ideas”.
But despite the toppling of the Islamist regime, she says the new government lacks female representation.
When Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok formed his government in September, he vowed to improve the situation for women despite the country’s economic and social difficulties.
He allocated four of 17 ministerial positions to women, including the key foreign affairs portfolio. A woman was also named head of the judiciary.
But the country’s top authority, the joint civilian and military Sovereign Council charged with overseeing the transition to civilian rule, only has two female members out of 11.
“If women had better representation, they would have more voices to defend their cause,” said Badreddine.
