Muslim Traditionalists Resist New Womens’ Rights Bill In Mali

A new family law code in the arid north west African nation of Mali has pleased rights groups and women’s activists, Muslim traditionalists are greeting the law with dismay, some even threatening violence should it be implemented.

The Irin news agency reported from the capital, Bamako, that the newly adopted code would change traditional marriage laws and expand womens’ rights. The code, which must still be signed into law by the president, sets the legal minimum age for marriage at 18, abolishes the death penalty, will only recognise secular marriage and expand rights of inheritance to include girls. But not everyone is happy. Mali’s highest Islamic ruling council secretary, Mohamed Kimbiri, said the council would use all means to block the enforcement of the new laws:

This code is a shame, treason. We are not against the spirit of the code, but we want a code appropriate for Mali that is adapted to its societal values. We will fight with all our resources so that this code is not promulgated or enacted.

Kimbiri said parliament had ignored suggestions from religious leaders and bowed to donor demands:

We do not want a code imported from donors, notably the European Union, which conditions its aid on certain social reforms, including the adoption of this code. The assembly adopted it under pressure. But we will not be pressured (into accepting) a code that is not ours.

Oumou Touré, president of a national women’s NGO association, was in favour of the code. She said it was a:

Constitutional and democratic demand. Many girls married at 10, 11 or 12 have died in recent years in the region of Kayes. The new code will put the brakes (on this) because the guilty will from now on by punished and fined.

According to Amnesty International, more than 60 percent of young women in 2005 married before they reached the age of 18. A recent meeting in Bamako’s largest mosque, hundreds of village and religious leaders spoke out against the code. One of Bamako’s district leaders, Bouramablen Traoré said: ”We cannot ban traditional marriages." A member of parliament (M.P.) explained why he voted against the code. M.P. Abdoulaye Dembélé said:

I cannot go before my voters and tell them that religious marriages are not legal. That a woman should no longer obey her husband and that they should respect one another equally. If I do this, voters will punish me in the next elections.

Responding to the criticism, Minister of Justice Maharafa Traoré said:

We cannot create change without triggering some noise. It is difficult to have unanimous agreement around any one reform. That is why we will educate citizens in order to overcome all resistance.

Mali is a sparsely populated, very poor nation in Africa’s Sahara desert belt. It has a long history of oppression, going back to French colonisation and Arab slavery before that. Mali also is one of the few countries that still have slavery, according to an earlier report by Irin. While the European and American slave trade receives wide publicity, the older and more ingrained Arab trade tends to be ignored, but is of special significance in African history. Dr. F.J. Nöthling says in his book, Pre-Colonial Africa, that from the rise of Islam to about 1600, some 4,8 million African people were enslaved by Muslim Arabs.