Senegal

Senegal is the westernmost country on the African continent. A former French colony, it is a secular republic with a legal system adapted from the French model and is known to be one of the most stable democracies in Africa. The United Nations Human Development Index ranks Senegal 166th of 182 countries with data.

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A cooperative in Senegal found that powdering local baobab fruit and jujubes increased their value. A Senegalese woman processes baobab fruit kernels into a powder for sale in the Senegalese capital, Dakar.

The legal code relating to family matters contains an option allowing Muslims, who constitute the majority (more than 90 percent) of the population, to follow a version of Sharia law in relation to marriage, divorce, family authority, child custody, and inheritance. The principle of the equality of men and women before the law is enshrined in the constitution, and in 1981, Senegal ratified, without reservation, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Women nonetheless experience de facto and de jure discrimination. For example, the provisions of the Islamic law of succession, recognized by the Family Code, favor men by assigning to a daughter half of the inheritance allotted to a son. As men alone are legally considered household heads, and may thus claim tax benefits for dependents, women-headed households face discrimination, as they are taxed at a higher rate and are not entitled to the child allowances paid to men and not women.

The population of almost 14 million people is predominantly rural. Some traditional practices common in rural areas such as early marriage and female genital surgery expose women and girls to reproductive and health problems. Despite the existence of a minimum legal age for marriage (16 years for women and 18 years for men), it is still quite common for girls in rural areas to marry as soon as they have reached puberty. However, urban-educated Senegalese women are increasingly marrying at a later age-a trend encouraged by the government. Civil marriage, as opposed to religious marriage, is more common in urban areas than in the countryside, as it is a condition for the receipt of social welfare benefits, which rural households do not receive. Polygamy is legal (a Muslim man may take up to four wives, and about half of Senegalese women live in polygynous marriages), and before entering into a civil marriage, a husband must declare whether the union will be monogamous or polygamous.