Edition 0, January 2001

Now is the time to talk about it!

At the United Nations Conference on the implementation of the Beijing platform (New York, June 2000), the signatory states to the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women undertook to eliminate, by 2005, any provisions in their national legislations which enshrined unequal rights between men and women.

In solidairty with the women of Africa and the rest of the world, and by availing of modern communication infrastructure, the women of this project are seeking to raise public awareness of the necessity of removing the notions of "marital power" and "paternal power" from Senegalese legislation, and replacing them with "joint parenting" and "joint responsiblity for the family ".

Action Plan

• Produce specialist data from existing documentation.
• Adapt this data for use by both the general public and specialist audiences, and publish it in several languages and in various formats.
• Train partners organisation to use the internet for lobbying and information campaigns.
• Conduct multi-media awareness-raising activities and a national and international campaign via a web site.
• Avail of information and communication technologies to raise the awareness of the public, media representatives, national human rights organisations, and public and parliamentary authorities of the necessity of revising the existing national legislation with regard to gender equality.
• Evaluate the activity with a possible view to making available useful methodologies to sister and partner organisations in the sub-region and beyond.

Adapting national provisions to international conventions

Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women
United Nations, 1981
Ratified by Senegal in 1985

Art. 9 - Equal rights with regard to nationality
Art 11, para. e) and f) - Equal rights with regard to work and social security.
Art 13 - Art 13 - Equal rights in relation to family benefits.
Art 16, para. c), d), f), g), h) - Equal rights with regard to parenting.

National Constitution of Senegal
2001

Preamble - Adherence to the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discirmination against women.
Art 1 - All individuals are equal in the eyes of the law, regardless of sex.
Art 7 - Men and women are equal before the law.
Art 15 - Equal rights regrading acces to land
Art 20 - Parents have the natural right, and the duty, to raise their children.
Art 25 - No individual may be dismissed from his/her work because of his/her sex. It is illegal to apply any discrimination between men and women in relation to employment, remuneration, or taxation.

Senegalese Family Code
1972
Ed. 2000

Art 152, Marital power - The man is the head of the household.
Art 153 - It is the husband's right to chose where the family lives.
Art 155 - Raising the children is the responsibility of both parents.
Art 277, Paternal power - The parental rights over the legitimate children of the marriage belong jointly to the mother and father. These rights are exercised, for the duration of the marriage, by the father in his role as head of the household.

… and put an end to its harmful consequences, namely

• Legal impotence of women in matters concerning their children
• Inequality of spouses with regard to family managemnet (choice of home).
• Unequal status of non-national spouses.
• Penalisation, in terms of fiscal and retirement conditions, of married women who work.
• Penalisation of the wife and the children in terms of social protection.
• Gender discrimination in terms of land access rights.