Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-t6hkb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T02:28:01.343Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Human Rights and Personal Law: Women in Sub-Saharan Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Rhoda Howard
Get access

Extract

In this paper I will discuss women’s rights regarding marriage, the family, and genital operations in the context of internationally accepted views of the individual rights of women. I focus upon these particular areas partly because the issue of female genital operations in Africa has been the subject of much popular attention in the last three years, but mainly because, given that women’s biological reproductive roles are so much more central to their lives than are the equivalent roles for men, their rights in these areas profoundly affect their ability to exercise their rights in other areas, i.e. in the polity and in the economy. For data I use examples from several English-speaking sub-Saharan countries.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 12 , Issue 1-2 , Spring/Summer 1982 , pp. 45 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1982 

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

Notes

This paper is based on part of a larger paper on women’s rights in English-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, containing sections on political and economic as well as personal rights. The larger paper was delivered at a conference on “International Human Rights: Dilemmas of Liberty and Development in Africa,” SUNY Buffalo, May 8, 1982, and is forthcoming in Claude E. Welch and Ronald I. Meltzer (eds.), Human Rights and Development in Africa (New York: SUNY Press, 1983). I would like to thank Drs. Welch and Meltzer for permission to print part of the paper in Issue. For their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, I would like to thank Omega Bula, Graham Knight, Michael Levin, Harriet Lyons, Clairee Robertson, and Audrey Wipper. I would also like to thank Karen Poxon and her staff for their efficient preparation of this manuscript, and Barbara Freeze and the staff of the Interlibrary Loan Service at McMaster University for their assistance in obtaining source material for this paper.

1. Bidney, David, “Cultural Relativism,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan and the Free Press, 1968), Vol. 3, p. 545 Google Scholar.

2. Bruce, Margaret K., “An Account of United Nations Action to Advance the Status of Women,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 375 (January 1968), p. 163 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. Proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations, 7 November 1967 (resolution 2263/XXII).

4. Document CAB/LEG/67/3/Rev. 5. from the Organization of African Unity Ministerial Meeting on African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, 7-17 January 1981, Banjul, the Gambia.

5. Luckham, Yaa, “Law and the Status of Women in Ghana,” Columbia Human Rights Law Review 8, no. 1. (Spring-Summer 1976), p. 69 Google Scholar.

6. Ibid., p. 71.

7. Ibid., p. 74.

8. (UN) A/CONF. 94/17, “World Conference of the United Nations Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace” (Copenhagen 14-30 July 1980), “Report of the Regional Preparatory Meeting of the United Nation Economic Commission for Africa (Second Regional Conference for the Integration of Women in Development).” Hereafter referred to as EC A 1980.

9. Roberta Ann Dunbar, “Legislative Reform and Muslim Family Law: Effects upon Women’s Rights in Africa South of the Sahara,” paper presented at the African Studies Association, Philadelphia, (October 1980), p. 28.

10. “Notes and News: The Rejection of the Marriage Bill in Kenya,” Journal of African Law 23, no. 2, (1979), p. 111.

11. ECA 1980, p. 33.

12. Ware, Helen, “Polygyny: Women’s views in a Transitional Society; Nigeria 1975,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 41, (February 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. Ekechi, Felix K., “African Polygamy and Western Christian Ethnocentrism,” Journal of African Studies 3 (August 1976), p. 331 Google Scholar.

14. Ware, “Polygyny;” Suellen Huntington, “Issues in Women’s Role in Economic Development: Critique and Alternatives,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 37 (November 1975), and Izzert, A., “Family Life among the Yoruba, in Lagos, Nigeria” in Social Change in Modern Africa, Southall, Aidan, ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961)Google Scholar.

15. “Notes and News: Rejection” p. 112, Luckham, “Ghana,” p. 93, and Donegan, C. E., “Marriage and Divorce Law in Sierra Leone: A Microcosm of African Legal Problems,” Cornell International Law Journal 5, no. 1, (1972), p. 63 Google Scholar.

16. Izzert, “Family Life,” p. 309.

17. Southall, Aidan, “Problems of the New Morality,” Journal of African Studies 1, (Winter 1974), p. 384 Google Scholar.

18. Izzert, “Family Life,” p. 308.

19. Maina, Rose, Muchai, V. W. and Gutto, S. B. O., “Law and the Status of Women in Kenya,” Columbia Human Rights Law Reviews no. 1, (Spring-Summer 1976), p. 189 Google Scholar.

20. Sagay, Itse, “Widow Inheritance versus Monogamous Marriage: the Oba’s Dilemma,” Journal of African Law 18, no. 2 (August 1974), p. 169, fn. 3Google Scholar.

21. Allot, A. N., “The Legal Status of Women in Africa,” Journal of African Law (1961), p. 128 Google Scholar.

22. Dunbar, “Legislative Reform,” p. 31.

23. S. B. O. Gutto, “The Status of Women in Kenya,” Discussion Paper No. 235, Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi (April 1976), p. 30.

24. Maina et al, “Kenya,” p. 194.

25. Schuster, Ilsa M. G., New Women of Lusaka (Palo Alto, Cal: Mayfleld, 1979), p. 107 Google Scholar.

26. Ibid., p. 137.

27. Donegan, “Sierra Leone,” p. 73.

28. I owe this point to Harriet Lyons.

29. Economic Commission for Africa, “Report on five workshops in home economics and other family-oriented fields,” (1973) quoted in UN E/CONF.66/BP/3, World Conference of the International Women’s Year, Mexico City 19 June–2 July 1975, Regional Seminar for Africa on the Integration of Women in Development with Special Reference to Population Factors, p. 7.

30. UN A/CONF.94/35, Report of the World Conference of the United Nations decade for Women: Equality, Development & Peace, Copenhage, 14-30 July 1980, p. 13.

31. Schulter, Lusaka, p. 93.

32. Izzert, “Family Life,” p. 315.

33. Mack, Dolores E., “Husbands and Wives in Lagos: the Effects of Socioeconomic Status on the Pattern of Family Living,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 40, no. 4, (November 1978), p. 815 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34. Mushanga, Tibamanya M., “Wife Victimization in East and Central Africa,” Victimology 2, nos. 3-4, (1977-78)Google Scholar.

35. Ibid., p. 484.

36. Wipper, Audrey, “African Women, Fashion and Scapegoating,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 6, no. 2, (1972)Google Scholar, special issue on African women, Audrey Wipper, ed.

37. Southall, “New Morality,” p. 371.

38. Mack, “Husbands and Wives,” p. 809.

39. ECA 1980, p. 29.

40. Maina et al., “Kenya,” p. 200, Luckham, “Ghana,” p. 90.

41. Akingba, J. B., The Problem of Unwanted Pregnancies in Nigeria Today (Lagos: University of Lagos Press, 1971), quoted in Mack, “Husbands and Wives,” p. 808 Google Scholar.

42. Hosken, Fran P., The Hosken Report: Genital and Sexual Mutilation of Females (Lexington, Mass: Women’s International Network News, 1979)Google Scholar.

43. Lyons, Harriet, “Anthropologists, Moralities and Relativities: the Problem of Genital Multilations,” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 18, no. 4 (November 1981)Google Scholar.

44. Ibid., p. 507.

45. McLean, Scilla, et al., Female Circumcision, Excision and Jnfibulation: the Facts and Proposals for Change (London: Minority Rights Groups, 1980), p. 3 Google Scholar. This short, accurate and unbiased summary, prepared in consultation with many African women experts, is the best single source on matters concerning female genital operations.

46. Ibid., p. 3.

47. Esther Ogunmodende, “Female Circumcision in Nigeria,” quoted in Hosken, Report, “Case History: Nigeria,” p. 8.

48. Hosken, Report, p. 1.

49. McLean et al., Female Circumcision, p. 7.

50. Murray, Jocelyn, “The Church Missionary Society and the ‘Female Circumcision’ Issue in Kenya, 1929-32,” Journal of Religion in Africa 8, no. 2, (1976)Google Scholar.

51. Kenyatta, Jomo, Facing Mount Kenya (London: Heinemann, 1979, 1st ed. 1938), pp. 131–135 Google Scholar.

52. McLean et al., Female Circumcision, p. 17.

53. I owe this last suggestion to Omega Bula.

54. McLean et al., Female Circumcision, p. 10.

55. ECA 1980, pp. 43-44.

56. McLean et al., Female Circumcision, p. 19.

57. Hosken, Report, “Case History: Kenya,” p. 21.

58. Ogunmodende, “Nigeria,” in McLean et al., Female Circumcision, p. 18.

59. McLean et al., Female Circumcision, p. 6.