Awa Thiam

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Awa Thiam
Awa Thiam.jpg
Born1950 (age 72–73)
Nationality Senegalese
Occupation(s)Politician, academic, writer, activist
Notable workBlack Sisters, Speak Out: Feminism and Oppression in Black Africa

Awa Thiam (born 1950) is a Senegalese politician, academic, writer, and activist. [1] She serves as Senegal's Director of the National Center for Assistance and Training of Women under the Ministry of Women and Children. [2] She is an advocate against female genital mutilation (FGM), which she speaks on in her 1978 book La Parole aux négresses (also published in English in 1986 as Black Sisters, Speak Out: Feminism and Oppression in Black Africa). She has a body of work published internationally, in both French and English. In 1982, she founded the Commission pour l'Abolition des Mutilations Sexuelles (CAMS, or Commission for the Abolition of Sexual Mutilation, in English), which fights for the abolition of FGM. [2] Thiam is among the women featured in the anthology Daughters of Africa . [3]

Contents

Career

After completing early education in her home country of Senegal, Awa Thiam moved to France for higher education. While there, she earned not only a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Paris VIII, but also a Ph.D. in philosophy from Pantheon-Sorbonne Paris I. [2] During her time in Europe, Thiam co-founded with Maria Kala Lobé, [4] a Cameroonian feminist, the Coordination des Femmes Noires, which is known to be one of the first groups of black feminists in France. [5]

Having gained multiple degrees overseas, Thiam returned to Senegal, and became assistant professor of Research at the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa at Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar. In 1987, Thiam petitioned the institution to build a Department of Anthropology of the Sexes, but her idea was ultimately rejected by the administration. [2]

In pursuit of improving the lives and status of African women, Thiam was a founding member of the Commission of the Abolition of Sexual Mutilation (also known as CAMS or Commission pour l'Abolition des Mutilations Sexuelles, in French), which was later dissolved and resurrected as CAMS-International. [6] She speaks extensively on the topic of female genital mutilation (FGM), claiming that the practice is merely a thinly-veiled form of patriarchal control. In her article for International Social Science Journal, Thiam states: "the purpose of these practices, whether it is admitted or not, is to control female sexuality. Some indeed do not hesitate to say that the aim is to reduce women’s hyper-sensuality. In any case the result remains the same: to make the young girl essentially a future reproductive and productive element. Hence, her life is taken over and mapped out for her from birth to death by a patriarchal society, which ensures that she is kept in her place at all stages of her development." [6]

Outside of the academic realm, Awa Thiam is the Minister of Health and Social Action, and Chair of the Committee on Health, Population, Social Affairs, and Solidarity. [7] In addition, she is the Director of the National Center for Assistance and Training of Women under the Ministry of Women and Children. She is also a co-founder of the Alliance for a New Citizenship in Dakar. [2]

Impact

Thiam is a strong advocate for the abolition of female genital mutilation (FGM). Her book Black Sisters, Speak Out: Feminism and Oppression in Black Africa (also published in English as Speak Out, Black Sisters: Feminism and Oppression in Black Africa [8] ), which was originally published in French as La Parole aux négresses in 1978, addresses this topic in depth. The book, one of the first of its kind, holds interviews of survivors and calls for change. [2] It also passes judgement on patriarchy for inciting violence against women, by women, stating that "it would seem that males have forced women to become their own torturers, to butcher each other." [9]

While much of her work is in regard to fighting female genital mutilation in Africa, Thiam is also an activist against polygamy, forced motherhood, veiling, forced sterilization, and illiteracy. [5] In her book, Black Sisters, Speak Out, she also stresses the importance of African women standing up for themselves and one another over white feminists trying to step in and fix African women, which she sees as just another type of colonialism. "People who understand nothing of ritual practices must beware of attacking them, especially when they base their judgment on criteria that bear no relationship to the mentalities of people in the society under consideration. The women of Black Africa have suffered enough from these colonial and neo-colonial attitudes." [10]

While Thiam's work seeks to unite African women against FGM, her work has not always been well received by her African female audience. Even as her western audience have embraced Thiam's work, the audience she seeks to empower and activate has often not had the same response. Members of her African audience have asserted that Thiam does not understand why women may support FGM, and that she is not taking into account the culture as a whole when she writes about the need to abolish FGM. [5]

Though there were many factors involved in the decision, the country of Senegal did, in fact, ban FGM in January 1999 in response to female activist speaking out against the practice. [11] However, it is reported that while this is a political victory, it may have come due to the fact that the largest people group in power at that point, the Wolof, did not practise FGM. There is still a large resistance in the country to the eradication of FGM. Awa Thiam still works to improve public health for the country of Senegal as Minister of Health and Social Action, and Chair of the Committee . [7]

Awa Thiam has also been honoured with the French governmental Medal for the Defense of Women's Rights. [2]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

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Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and female circumcision, is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. The practice is found in some countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and within their respective diasporas. UNICEF estimated in 2016 that 200 million women in 30 countries—Indonesia, Iraq, Yemen, and 27 African countries including Egypt—had been subjected to one or more types of female genital mutilation.

The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children(IAC) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) which seeks to change social values and raise consciousness towards eliminating female genital mutilation (FGM) and other traditional practices which affect the health of women and children in Africa.

International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is a United Nations-sponsored annual awareness day that takes place on February 6 as part of the UN's efforts to eradicate female genital mutilation. It was first introduced in 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religious views on female genital mutilation</span>

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Malicounda Bambara is a village in the M'bour Department of the Thiès Region in western Senegal, located approximately 85 km from the Senegalese capital of Dakar. Founded in 1902 by migrants from neighboring Mali in search of arable land, today the village counts ethnic bambaras, sarakolés, wolofs and socés among its population. Malicounda Bambara is especially notable for being the first village in Senegal to publicly abandon the traditional practice of female genital cutting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in Senegal</span> Overview of the status of women in Senegal

Women in Senegal have a traditional social status as shaped by local custom and religion. According to 2005 survey, the female genital mutilation prevalence rate stands at 28% of all women in Senegal aged between 15 and 49.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prevalence of female genital mutilation</span>

Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting (FGC), female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and female circumcision, is practiced in 30 countries in western, eastern, and north-eastern Africa, in parts of the Middle East and Asia, and within some immigrant communities in Europe, North America and Australia. The WHO defines the practice as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons."

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La Parole aux négresses is a founding book of Francophone African feminism by Awa Thiam published in 1978 with a foreword by Benoîte Groult. It is considered a founding essay of intersectionality exposing the specificity of black women's feminism in the feminist movement from a francophone point of view. It is composed of interviews giving voices to the concerned black women.

References

  1. ↑ Kathleen E. Sheldon (2005). Historical Dictionary of Women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Scarecrow Press. ISBN   978-0-8108-5331-7.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Dior, Konate (2011). Akyeampong, Emmanuel K.; Gates, Henry Louis (eds.). Dictionary of African Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195382075.001.0001. ISBN   9780199857258.
  3. ↑ Charles F. Peterson, Dubois, Fanon, Cabral: The Margins of Elite Anti-colonial Leadership, Lexington Books, 2007, p. 137, note 55.
  4. ↑ "" Transformer le silence en paroles et en actes ". À propos d'Afrofem". www.contretemps.eu. Retrieved 2021-08-11.
  5. 1 2 3 de Haan, Francisca; Allen, Margaret; Purvis, June; Daskalova, Krassimira, eds. (2013). Women's activism: global perspectives from the 1890s to the present. United Kingdom: Routledge. pp. 185–186. ISBN   9780415535755.
  6. 1 2 Thiam, Awa (1998). "Women's fight for the abolition of sexual mutilation". International Social Science Journal. 50 (157): 381–386. doi:10.1111/1468-2451.00150. ISSN   0020-8701.
  7. 1 2 "Le député Awa Dia Thiam sur l'épidémie Ebola : Le plan de riposte du gouvernement du Sénégal est excellent". Dakaractu. September 5, 2014. Retrieved December 6, 2018.
  8. ↑ Thiam, Awa (1996). Speak Out, Black Sisters: Feminism and Oppression in Black Africa. Frontline Distribution International. ISBN   9780948390098.
  9. ↑ Thiam, Awa (1986). Black Sisters, Speak Out: Feminism and Oppression in Black Africa . London: Pluto Press. pp.  75. ISBN   9780745300504.
  10. ↑ Thiam (1986). Black Sisters, Speak Out. London. p. 80.
  11. ↑ "Female Genital and Sexual Mutilation". Women's International Network News. 25 (2): 63. Spring 1999 – via EBSCOhost.
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