INTRODUCTION In the months following the powerful revolution of 2019 that toppled the Islamist regime, the city of Khartoum underwent significant changes, and there was a sense of optimism in the capital. One of the chief changes was the repeal of Khartoum’s Public Order Laws, which guaranteed a step forward in the protection of women from the brutality of state violence. However, the deep detrimental impact of the Islamist government cannot be easily reversed simply by its removal and therefore, the issues underpinning the Islamist government must be addressed. Throughout the years of the Islamist regime, women experienced heightened surveillance while out in public, which resulted in their inability to move about freely. The policing of women in the public sphere became normalized through the public order laws that controlled women’s behavior and dress. The increased surveillance of women by the state resulted in a considerable shift in women’s mobility in the public sphere. In terms of employment, this translated into an increase in occupational segregation. That is not to say that segregation in employment did not exist prior to the Islamist government, but rather sheds light on how this divide was intensified by the power of the Islamist regime. Professions were delineated into distinct economic sectors for men and women. Due to the defined boundaries of women’s employment, gender stereotypes have sadly, been maintained. In this context, stereotypes within the laws are solidified to perpetuate the belief that the private sphere is the only legitimate space for women. Following this framework, women are guided toward ‘soft’ employment that often represents an extension of their domestic activities. It is important to acknowledge how distinct groups of Sudanese women experience these stereotypes in the labor market differently. As a result of prolonged civil conflict, poverty, and natural disaster, a substantial part of the rural Sudanese population have moved to urban centers, fuelling the rapidly growing class of urban poor who work in the informal sector. While displaced men dominate construction work, public transport jobs, and manual work, displaced women take on more precarious forms of self-employment that expose them to greater risks, including harassment from authorities. This has created a pipeline for displaced and marginalized women to enter informal and precarious forms of self-employment that are often an extension of their domestic, unpaid labor. Women in the informal sector face immeasurable challenges. In the face of resistance and social pressure to perform stereotypically feminine jobs, women are forced to negotiate their participation in the informal sector. However, despite the challenges facing Sudanese women socially and politically, women have
Negotiating Space: Sudanese Women’s access to Vocational Education & Employment
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