Sahrawi Women in the Liberation Struggle of the Sahrawi People

Sahrawi Women in the Liberation Struggle of the Sahrawi People

Anne Lippert argues that Sahrawi women greatly expanded their social and political roles during the struggle for independence. She traces these roles back to nomadic society, where women ran the tent and household property, shaped tribal alliances and educated the children, and shows that women also took part in earlier resistance against Spain.

After the Polisario Front was founded in 1973, women helped with recruitment, and in 1974 the National Union of Sahrawi Women was created. When Moroccan and Mauritanian forces invaded in 1975, women led the evacuation of civilians and then built and ran the refugee camps in Algeria. They organised committees for health, education and supplies, trained as nurses and teachers and helped bring down widespread illiteracy. Lippert also describes the camps’ system of popular congresses, in which women made up most of the delegates at the base and large shares of the higher councils. Her evidence comes mainly from interviews and fieldwork carried out between 1975 and 1987.

She concludes that women’s participation has been evolutionary but has had revolutionary consequences, while noting that at the time women still held no ministerial post and led no commission.

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