SAHELIAN WOMEN SPEAK OUT AGAINST IMPERIALISM PART 1

Over the past couple of years, since military leaders in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger military seized power to chart a path towards pan-African unity and sovereignty, life has changed dramatically for the working class and farmers across Africa’s western Sahel and Sahara region.

Perhaps no sector has been as impacted as women. While we hear their voices less often and these conservative cultures tend to minimise them, women are at the forefront of defending and building the trio of nations’ Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

African Stream journalist Inemesit Richardson travelled to each of the three countries to talk to women, who say the Western imperialist warfare - which armed terror groups that have wreaked havoc on the Sahel over the past decade - has disproportionately impacted women. Gender-based violence is a reality in wars and, in the Sahel, paramilitary death squads have specifically targeted women. Women also suffer from increased poverty as they lose their husbands and sons to the fight against terrorism. This situation has only politicised women, who have become some of the most well-organised and outspoken critics of the imperialist system.

Nigerien women have joined organisations such as Les Femmes Engagées pour la Sauvegarde de la Patrie (Women Engaged to Safeguard the Homeland) and Les Sentinelles de la Patrie (Sentinels of the Homeland), which have recruited several hundred to several thousand women since the 26 July 2023 coup d’état that ousted a Western aligned leader. Meanwhile, women across the Sahel draw inspiration from assassinated Burkina Faso President Thomas Sankara (1949-87), who spoke incessantly about the need to emancipate women within the African liberation struggle.

Sahelian women place themselves within an obscure tradition of female militantism and political leadership, as represented by Aoua Keïta, the pan-African feminist and socialist who worked alongside Modibo Keïta (no relation) in Mali, and Sarrounia, Niger's brave woman warrior who fought the French colonising army in the 19th century.