Two first ladies: A look at polygamy in Senegal
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00:00 Well staying now with Senegal, one of the most striking images from the campaign was the
00:05 appearance of Fay with both of his wives Marie and Absa. It's an unusual sight in the West African
00:11 country and joining me to tell us a bit more is Annette Young, the host of our show The 51%.
00:16 Annette, let's talk then about Senegal's new leader. He's the youngest in the history of
00:22 Senegal and he also practices polygamy. He does indeed and it shows the paradoxes
00:28 of modern day Senegal life. You know he's 44 years old and already has two wives,
00:34 the first one being Marie who he married 15 years ago and they now have four children
00:39 and he married Absa a year ago. Polygamy, having said that, has long stirred controversy
00:46 and the public appearance by BDF as he's referred to in Senegal has certainly made it very much a
00:54 talking point among local media outlets and it sparked rather a diverse reaction. Now we actually
01:02 were in Senegal about four or five years ago reporting on gender equality there and it was
01:09 interesting to see that there is indeed a massive push by young women to have more of a public role
01:16 in life because while in Senegal many women have the same legal rights as men, the reality is it's
01:23 still a very traditional patriarchal society where women are expected to stay at home,
01:28 take care of the families while the men are seen to be in charge of the household. Yet at the same
01:34 time it also has I think somewhere around 46% of its national MPs are female and let's not forget
01:40 in this presidential campaign Nadia, there actually was a woman running as a candidate.
01:46 Do we know how widespread polygamy is in Senegal?
01:49 Well it's pretty widespread in the rural areas and that was apparent when we headed out of Dakar
01:54 and went to report on village life and it's considered as a way of widening if you like
02:01 one's family. I mean according to traditional Islam it permits men to have up to four wives
02:08 providing they have the financial means to take care of them. Many marriages however are not
02:15 registered in Senegal so it makes it very difficult to exactly estimate just how many are
02:20 polygamous. But back in 2013 that was the last official report on polygamy in the country and
02:26 somewhere around 32% of marriages were perceived to be polygamous. Having said that many Senegalese
02:33 women say that they find polygamy hypocritical and unfair and recently the UN Human Rights Committee
02:41 in 2022 said it amounted to discrimination against women and should be ended.
02:47 At the same time you only have to watch a lot of TV soap operas that are made and filmed in
02:54 Dakar because Dakar is the film as filming centre for a lot of television soap operas in West
03:00 Africa and a lot of them explore the themes of what it's like to be living within a polygamous
03:05 household and the traumas and also the difficulties it poses when you've got a situation where more
03:14 and more young women are educated and are expecting to go out there and earn a living and
03:19 certainly not want to end up in a marriage with a man who's going to go on and marry others.
03:24 At the same time this is also a country where an estimated two million young girls are believed
03:30 to have been subjected to female genital mutilation and it's also where child marriage
03:36 sadly is not that unusual. All right but interesting thanks for bringing that to
03:40 our attention Annette Young.