Today’s show spotlights feminist activism and women in politics in Sudan and South Sudan. Yes, there are two separate countries now. South Sudan gained independence from Sudan on 9 July 2011 after a fifty-year long war. Women played key roles during that time. Most recently, the protests that led to the ouster of Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir in 2019, were dominated by women. They came out day after day on the streets of Khartoum, constituting as many as two-thirds of those who turned out. These women have become emblems of the uprising.
Sudan and South Sudan face humanitarian crises that disproportionately affect women and girls who suffer hideous consequences of the violence, abuse, deprivation, and loss of livelihoods. At the same time, women are actively organizing and bringing communities together, providing basic needs and services, seeking to gain political positions in the governments.
Margo Okazawa-Rey is in conversation with Professor Amal Ezzuddin, the governor of the northern state of Sudan, Honorable Sarah Clito Rial, the governor of the west Bahr El Ghazal state in South Sudan, and Prof Nada Mustafa Ali, author of Gender, Race, and Sudan’s Exile Politics: Do We All Belong to This Country? Our show focuses on women’s situations in both locations.