Niger Muslims protest against women's rights bill

Like their brethren in Pakistan, Muslims in Niger are not happy with the reform of laws concerning women's rights. By Abdoulaye Massalatchi for Reuters, with thanks to Twostellas:

NIAMEY (Reuters) - Some 2,000 Muslim traditionalists in Niger staged a protest on Sunday against plans to ratify Africa's Maputo Protocol on women's rights, which has already been rejected by the West African country's parliament.
Adopted by African heads of state in Mozambique's capital in 2003, the Protocol aims to enshrine rights for women across the continent, guaranteeing them equality with men in all spheres of life and outlawing female circumcision.

But the Protocol has met resistance in Niger, a deeply impoverished, landlocked country in the arid Sahel region on the southern edge of the Sahara.

Some 95 percent of Niger's 12.6 million people are Muslims and Islamic law and tradition, as interpreted by Muslim scholars and judges known as Ulemas, govern family life here.

Crowds gathered on Sunday at a square in the capital Niamey used for Islamic prayers to voice opposition to the Protocol and government attempts to have it ratified.

"An Ulema can not accept a man saying that his wife and he are equal in the sharing of their heritage. It is unimaginable," said Ibrahim Oumarou, a preacher and member of a coalition of Islamic organisations who organised the demonstration.

Parliament voted down ratification of the Protocol in June by 42 votes to 31.

Muslim groups held a demonstration in October to denounce a "new diabolical plot" to ratify the Protocol. A planned meeting of Muslim groups at the capital's main mosque a week ago was banned by the authorities.

Last week the government revived efforts to have the Protocol ratified, seeking to mollify traditional Muslims by saying the text was aimed not at them, but at people who mistreated women because they had not followed their God....

The Maputo Protocol is designed to guarantee women rights in marriage, politics, education, employment and a host of other areas, and requires countries which ratify it to respect those rights in their own domestic laws.

It also bans female circumcision -- often referred to as female genital mutilation -- and bans or discourages polygamy, child marriage and other customs common in Niger's conservative and largely rural society.

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14 Comments

Josephine | December 4, 2006 7:31 AM

"Last week the government revived efforts to have the Protocol ratified, seeking to mollify traditional Muslims by saying the text was aimed not at them, but at people who mistreated women because they had not followed their God...."

Doesn't that sound familiar: seeking to mollify Muslims.

I'm glad some governments are trying to move forward in their policies and laws. It's too bad religion (Islam) keeps getting in the way.

This is a strong example of why the best governments have separation of church and state.

BB | December 4, 2006 7:38 AM

from Reuters story

"...Adopted by African heads of state in Mozambique's capital in 2003, the Protocol aims to enshrine rights for women across the continent, guaranteeing them equality with men in all spheres of life and outlawing female CIRCUMCISION.."

I know they circumsize the men-does this mean the right for little girls to not be circumsized having their genuitalia cut clean off?

islam--what a curse!

Rights for women not to be second class citizens--what a non-islamic idea!

ISLAMSFORLOSERS | December 4, 2006 7:46 AM

These people must have this protcol confused with those better known protocols calling for the Jewish takeover of the world. They're just misinformed.

HawkWatcher | December 4, 2006 8:30 AM

The traditional fundamentalist movement within Islam grows worldwide, and soon will dominate the religion.
Just as these traditionalists in Niger use Islamic law to oppose any advancement of women, others worldwide use Qur'anic texts and Hadiths to foment violent Jihad.
I don't see any textual basis for true Muslim reform...unflinching domination of all khuffar like me is the revealed purpose of Islam that I find when studying.
When a State and a repressive religion are one and the same, there is no freedom, and this story is a shining example to the world showing the results.
My guess is that barbarism will prevail in Niger.

Hugh | December 4, 2006 8:50 AM

The big story in Niger has nothing to do with loafer-clad unappealing Joseph Wilson or his outwardly attractive trophy wife, but rather with the Saudi money that has helped to transform the practice of Islam in formerly easygoing, syncretistic Niger. This has been reported on by students from Niger who have in recent years returned home from living abroad (in France, for example) and have been horrified at the transformations in the mosques and in the practice and attitudes of the Muslims of Niger.

Is this being monitored in the Pentagon? Is anyone watching like those famous hawks they are so often said to be, what is happening with the wahhabization of the last remaining outposts of marabout-diluted Islam in sub-Saharan Africa?

A whole department of anti-Jihad jointly supported by the Pentagon and the State Department devoted to "non-Arab Islam" with a subdepartment devoted specifically to West Africa? Would that be too much to ask? Would that be too expensive, given the half-trillion that goes for Baby-Huey boots-on-the-ground to "fight them over there so we won't have to fight them over here"?

Round about 1900, Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote a book entitled "The Influence of Sea Power on History." In 1942 the Russian emigre, then a proud American citizen, De Seversky, wrote "Victory Through Air Power." Sea Power. Air Power.

Here's an idea for a book: Victory Through Brain Power. There are plenty of brains all over America, that could figure out all kinds of things to weaken the force, the appeal, the strength, of the Jihad and of Islam. Those brains are not being picked. They are being ignored.

ISLAMSFORLOSERS | December 4, 2006 9:04 AM

Leave it to Islam to call civil rights "a diabolical plot". And people wonder how Islam is NOT the exact opposite of anything good in this world?

TheOmegaMan | December 4, 2006 9:44 AM

"It also bans female circumcision -- often referred to as female genital mutilation -- and bans or discourages polygamy, child marriage and other customs common in Niger's conservative and largely rural society."

Wouldn't this infringe on the masculinity of muslim males?

A_Plague_on_Both_Houses | December 4, 2006 11:52 AM

Maybe the best way to deal with a plague as virulent as Islam is to let it sweep through the world and infect at will. Something so damaging will not be able to sustain itself and this pandemic may be the thing the free population needs to innoculate itself. Those people and their belief systems most susceptible to Islam will be brushed aside by those in the population who are resistant or immune.

Of course this type of progression will be extremely painful and damaging... but this is the way things like Ebola are contained after all. Ebola limits itself by killing off its host bodies so quickly. This virulency is far better for the world than something like AIDS...

We need to provoke, confront but maybe also 'allow' Islam to behave more like Ebola than AIDS.... AIDS is far more dangerous and widespread in the long run.

The fast jihad is better for us than the slow jihad.

ISLAMSFORLOSERS | December 4, 2006 11:54 AM

Looks like Niger wants to remain in the Stone Age. No rights for half its people while 95 percent of the population follows a cult that's been so wonderful to black folks in Africa. Why not simply rename the place Loserland?

ISLAMSFORLOSERS | December 4, 2006 12:14 PM

Posted by: A_Plague_on_Both_Houses at December 4, 2006 11:52 AM

Nice idea-Islam would indeed die out eventually as its minions fight to the death about who really is Mr. Perfect's favorite. The problem would be, as it has always been in the past, the stupidity of the West. The West will always extend
its hand full of aid and then Islamania would survive yet again to kill and kill some more. Had the West let the ummah drown in its own self induced misery ages ago we would probably have Islam all bottled up as a mere sample today-just like another deadly scourge called smallpox.

A_Plague_on_Both_Houses | December 4, 2006 1:20 PM

IslamforLosers - I stand corrected... western aid will continue the spread of AIDs... you're right. We enable it.

islamakapigeaters | December 4, 2006 4:10 PM

An Ulema can not accept a man saying that his wife and he are equal in the sharing of their heritage. It is unimaginable," said Ibrahim Oumarou, a preacher and member of a coalition of Islamic organisations who organised the demonstration.
Abraham needs to realize this not 788ad were women are man's property it is my 22nd century A.D and women like it or not do have rights even though there are times when my wife uses her rights I wish we were living 100 years back when I would've been the boss. sigh of the fact that the law will also prevent a girl losing important parts of her I am all in favor of banning mutilation as a married Man i admit to being biased as I like the way my wife lookes down their, anyone that thinks that a bunch of scar tissue is sexy is sick

callmeinfidel | December 4, 2006 6:16 PM

the problem with the folks in niger as of those folks in pakistan is that they are dumb.

germaninamerica | December 5, 2006 2:09 PM

the problem with the folks in niger as of those folks in pakistan is that they are dumb.

Posted by: callmeinfidel

Call me stupid.. but isn't Niger the place with the Yellow-cake Uranium deposits? And then I ask myself why are these folks so islamic alluvasudden?

Hmmmmmm.... someone must've ben *proselytizing*. And who *might* that be?

My guess: the Wahhabitches! Where are they from you ask: Saudia Arabia I say?

Maybe I should be secretary of defense instead of this old new Neo-con. Yeah.. I know.. I've been told the same things.. NO, THEY ARE ALL NEO-CON sellouts!

And what if Hitlery gets in next?

Things would really begin to look like a Monarchy around here! Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton... and who's to say that they won't try to get "jeb-boy" in there next after Hitlery?

And they'll all be meeting up for Golf with Tiger in Dubai of course :-) We're just a bunch of stupid yahoos back home after all.

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