You are here

Hausa-Fulani women's movement and womanhood

Author: Gbenga Afolayan

In: Agenda, Vol 33, No 2, 2019, pp. 52-60

This article examines how women’s organisations have attempted to ensure compliance for Hausa-Fulani women with the Minimum Age of Marriage Clause of Nigerian Child Rights Act of 2003, in a context of plural legal systems and traditional norms, which make achieving gender equality difficult. The authors focus on this issue in the context of feminist attempts in Nigeria since the 1980s to reconstruct the concept of ‘the feminine’. This reconstruction is especially important in struggling against patriarchy and local interpretations of Islam in northern Nigeria.