Muslim Women’s Social Movements in the Sahel

Abstract Since the 1990s, the countries of the Sahel have been experimenting with democratic systems that have resulted in both political pluralism with a gendered dimension and a renewed place for Islam in the public sphere. This chapter focuses on the emergence of critical Muslim women’s social reform movements advocating for women’s rights in the region. These movements manifest a diversity of Islamic and secularist trajectories and objectives. Strikingly, however, the majority converges on a common quest for gender justice against cultural and state patriarchy. Furthermore, they also display a range of responses to external hegemonic forces—including neoliberalism, local and global violent Islamist extremisms, human trafficking, and ethno-regional tensions. Starting with the politico-economic context within which many of these critical social movements have arisen in recent times, this chapter uses specific social frames—education, family law, arts, and entrepreneurship—to examine their strategies and transformative impacts in the Sahel.