Sahrawi Women in the Liberation Struggle of the Sahrawi People

Abstract

T H R O U G H T H E I R R O L E S in the current liberation struggle of the Sahrawis of Western Sahara, Sahrawi women have substantially increased their traditional participation and importance in that society. Since 1973 the Sahrawis, the indigenous peoples of the former Spanish Sahara in northwest Africa, have engaged in an armed struggle to free that territory: first from Spain, which protected and administered it in part or in whole from the Franco-Spanish Conventions of 1904 until 1976; then from Morocco and Mauritania, to which Spain transferred its administrative powers by the Madrid Accords of 1975 (the transfer took effect in February 1976 when Spain withdrew); and since 1979, following a peace treaty between Mauritania and the Polisario Front, against Morocco alone. The territory has been marked for decolonization by the United Nations Decolonization Committee since 1963, and in 1988 the United Nations drew up an implementation plan (approved by both parties in 1990) for a negotiated settlement of the territorial conflict through a free and fair referendum for the Sahrawis. Morocco and Mauritania entered the conflict because of their historical claims to the Saguia el Hamra (northern two-thirds) and the Rio de Oro (southern one-third) regions of Spanish Sahara, now known as Western Sahara. Although these claims were discounted in 1975 by the International Court of Justice in favor of a referendum of the Sahrawi people, the countries used their 1975 agreement with Spain and military force in their effort to exert control over the mineral-rich region. While Mauritania dropped its claim in 1979, Morocco has continued to lay claim to all of the Western Sahara as part of the Greater a vision of Morocco that also includes the present kingdom of Morocco, part of Algeria, all of Mauritania, part of Mali, and part of Senegal. Morocco spent sixteen