conflict with the 1990 United Nations Convention
on the Rights of the Child, article 24(3), but little
has been done to prevent the practice.
Gender issues in the context of national constitu-
tions arise in connection with questions of inheri-
tance, marriage, and the dissolution of marriage.
Most Muslim countries in Sub-Saharan Africa fol-
low Muslim laws on these matters. In Nigeria,
Niger, Mali, Cameroon, Senegal, and the Gambia
women are married and allowed divorce according
to Islamic laws, though those laws are interpreted
differently in various Muslim communities. Female
children may inherit the half share alloted them by
Islamic law, and this does leave Muslim women
with the possibility of inheriting land (Meager
2000), while women of most non-Muslim ethnic
groups have just the usufruct, even though the con-
stitutions of most African countries entitle them to
rights to land and other property. In countries such
as Mali and Senegal, where historically Islam
served as a basis for social organization and a vehi-
cle for mediation and negotiation between a weak
state and a predominantly Muslim society, the lead-
ership of brotherhoods such as the Tijàniyya and
the Murides continue to wield enormous power
(Clark 1999). In such circumstances, Islamic beliefs
and the accompanying cultural baggage may nega-
tively influence women when Muslim leaders are
conservative and constitutional declarations do not
work efficiently because of the interdependence of
the government and the Muslim leaders who
restrict the authority of each of them over society
(Creevey 1996, 302).
Finally, a clause dealing with a legal construction
of homosexual and sexual orientation was included
in the 1993 interim constitution of South Africa (De
Vos, 1996), but is either absent or negatively inter-
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