For three decades, Omar al-Bashir enforced a raft of oppressive laws aimed at subduing women, apparently
with the objective of satisfying the country’s ultra-conservative Islamic forces, which propped up his
regime.
Child marriage was allowed, marital rape was permitted, and women were not allowed to wear trousers in
public.
It was perhaps unsurprising, then, that women made up a majority of demonstrators when popular protests
swept the capital starting in December 2018, eventually leading to Bashir’s removal on 11 April.
But politics quickly returned to being a boys’ club, according to campaigners. Civil society groups and the
country’s military began to negotiate over the country’s political future, and women have once again been
pushed aside.
Although they made up an estimated 60 to 70 per cent of demonstrators that took down Bashir, women are
almost entirely absent from political leadership positions hashing out the country’s future.
The high-wire negotiations have a familiar uniform of suits and ties on one side and camouflaged uniforms
on the other.
“Where are the women?” jokes Sara Abdelgalil, one of the few top officials in the Sudanese Professionals
Association (SPA), the group that organised the protests.
“For the last 30 years, women were invisible in politics and we didn’t have women at the top of these
organisations.”
Political parties need to reorganise by involving more people, and there is no way you are going to get the
votes of women if their views are not going to be represented
And the lack of female leaders in Sudan’s democratic movement is not just a question of equality for the
sake of equality, say women’s activists, but will affect the quality of the transition and, ultimately, the
success of the revolution.
The collapse of Bashir’s rule was followed by negotiations between civilian groups and the army, aimed at
reaching a power-sharing agreement.
But the civilian groups have fallen into vicious disputes, in part over the fact that the men at the negotiating
table do not accurately reflect those demonstrators who catalysed the revolution.
Of the dozens of civilians who have participated in the negotiations, only one is a woman, Mervat
Hamadelneel, about whom little is known.
There has been criticism that the leadership of civilian groups, called the Forces of Freedom and Change,
has been more willing to compromise with the country’s junta than the demonstrators they represent
would like.
“The lack of diversity makes the negotiating team extremely closed-minded and they can’t come up with
the results that represent the revolutionary forces,” says Hala Alkharib, the regional director of the Strategic
Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa.
“Most of the political parties who are currently negotiating on behalf of the Sudanese people did not invest
on addressing the challenges of women, so women are not interested in joining.”