Elected officials and religious leaders have joined forces with researchers documenting Senegalese women's unequal access to land. They are raising awareness among women, and men, while encouraging women to participate in decision-making...
moreElected officials and religious leaders have joined forces with researchers documenting Senegalese women's unequal access to land. They are raising awareness among women, and men, while encouraging women to participate in decision-making bodies. Laws and traditions are at loggerheads in Senegal over women's rights to land. While legal reforms over the past two decades grant women equal access to land, traditional practices deny them that right. This is true throughout the country, even though more than three-quarters of women who are economically active in Senegal work on the land in agriculture. Senegal is a country of many ethnicities and diverse agricultural zones. The Wolof and Sérère predominate in the country's Peanut Basin, where they grow cash crops such as peanuts and millet. In the Casamance, most people are Diola and produce rice. In the wooded grasslands, Peul nomads use land to pasture livestock. People in these and other zones follow a variety of customs. No matter how diverse their practices may be, however, they share a common characteristic: they overlook women when making decisions about land. This case study is one of five presented on the Women and Land in_focus website.