LANDSCAPE The period of 1989 to 2019 was stamped by the rule of a militarized Islamist regime under deposed president, Omar Al-Bashir. In Sudan, the tactical use of politicizing Islam was shown in the narrow and regressive interpretations of Sharia law employed by the state. Along with the courts’ militant interpretations of Sharia, the shift to political Islam was also evident in the legislature’s implementation of policy packages that quickly permeated public consciousness and effectively, among other things, altered gender relations. A key feature of this was the formation of the public order regime in Khartoum, which included a complete set of policies and an independent agency to monitor that the city was conforming to the Islamist outlook.2 The state-defined notion of religious morality seeped through institutions, the media and the education system. Courts, committees, police and security services were formed and dedicated to the regulation of public moral conduct.3 The increased conservatism driven by the regime, supported, institutionalized, and thus legitimized patriarchal gender roles and relations. In this context, men were granted the right to ‘correct’ women in their state-defined capacity as social and religious protectors.4 As documented in much of SIHA’s work, the brutal public order laws were unequally applied to the public with discrimination rooted in gender, class and race. Though all women were exposed to the law, particular groups, such as alcohol brewers, traders, tea sellers, students and activists were more affected.5 This was due to the nature of their livelihoods and lifestyles that demanded their presence in the public sphere, leaving them more susceptible to the violence perpetuated by the laws. Exploring the law through a gendered analysis reveals how the sociopolitical discourse influenced the ways in which women were able to exist in certain spaces.6 Central to this was the regulation of women’s modes of dress in public. The law prohibited women’s ‘immodest’ clothing or any mode of dress that ‘caused
Nageeb, S. A. (2004). New Spaces and Old Frontiers: women, social space, and Islamization in Sudan. Lexington Books
2
Ibid. pg. 20
3
Ibid. Pg. 20, see Nugdalla, S. (2020). The Revolution Continues: Sudanese Women’s Activism. In Gender Protests, and Political Change in Africa, Palgrave Macmillan Publishing.
4
Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa, Redress Trust (2017) Criminalisation of Sudanese Women: A Need For Fundamental Reform. Retrieved from http://sihanet.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/02/Criminalization-of-Women-in-Sudan. pdf 5
Nugdalla, S. (2020). The Revolution Continues: Sudanese Women’s Activism. In Gender Protests, and Political Change in Africa, Palgrave Macmillan Publishing. 6
Negotiating Space: Sudanese Women’s access to Vocational Education & Employment
Page No. 9
