Women and the Law: A Critique of Senegalese Family Law

Abstract

In most African states, postcolonial legislators have established legal systems and written laws that overlook the social and legal relevance of African indigenous law. Since 4 April 1960, when the Republic of Senegal was officially declared a sovereign state, it has been waging a not-so-covert war against its African heritage. Senegalese society has been coerced into rejecting its African identity by both postcolonial written law and far-reaching Muslim fundamentalist propaganda. The Senegalese Family Law passed in 1972, with rules that are generally hostile to African values, is a case in point. Not only did it abolish all customary family laws, but it also ignored the core principles of indigenous laws on family relations. This paper exposes how the rules of the Family Law clash with the ancestral ways still followed by the majority of Senegalese people and how that clash is detrimental mainly to women and children when it comes to rights.