Sudan loses prominent women’s rights activist Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim

Sudan has lost a prominent women’s rights activist Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim. The struggle for women’s rights in Sudan has been a battle Fatima has fought for since her 20s. While still a student in high school, Fatima  started writing critiques against the colonial government and began advocating for women’s rights. She helped lead a revolution in Sudan and later became the first female Member of Parliament.

In the late 1940s, Ibrahim and a group of other women activists founded the Sudanese Women’s Union and grew the membership to over 1500. In 1956-1957, Ibrahim became the president of the Women’s Union. She widened the participation of women from different backgrounds. The Union went on to have a publication called Woman’s Voice which it used to fight for the rights of women in Sudan. In 1954 Fatima joined the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), and for a short period she became a member of the Central Committee of the SCP (the SCP was the first Sudanese Party which had an internal women’s structure, since 1946). In 1965, Ibrahim became the first woman to be elected into Parliament.

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She was quoted by Qantara as saying, “When we demanded political rights in 1954 the Islamic Front maintained that we were against Islam. Women were not allowed to have any political rights and equality with men was unheard of. That’s why two Muslim sisters stepped down from the executive council of our women’s union.”

1965 Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim was the first woman to become a member of parliament not only in the Sudan, but in the Middle East and Africa. Photo: Twitter/QantaraEn

The current secretary of the Sudanese Women’s Union, Mariam Osman Jusur announced that the Union would name one of its halls after the late activist.

After the Omar al-Bashir coup d’état in 1990, Ibrahim left Sudan and joined the opposition in exile. She returned to Sudan in 2005 after reconciliation between the government and opposition, and was appointed in the parliament representing the SCP.

Ibrahim further explained, “In parliament, we demanded complete equality for working women. In 1969 women received the same rights when it came to earnings, pension and working conditions. In addition, we also demanded that women be appointed judges of the Islamic faith. And we achieved that! Sudan was the only Islamic country that had female judges for Islamic law. Women became diplomats, joined the army, became policemen.”

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In 1991, Ibrahim was elected President of the Women’s International Democratic Federation and she became the first African Muslim woman to hold this position leading to her receiving the UN award for Outstanding Achievements in the Field of Human Rights just two years later.

In 2006, Ibrahim won the Ibn Rushd Prize in recognition of her struggle for promoting women’s rights and social justice in Sudan and the Arab region.

Her activism came with a cost; a two year house arrest, and the execution of her husband. Ibrahim passed away at the age of 84 in a London hospital. Her body will be flown to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan where she’ll be given a state burial.