Male politicians and gender politics: a long path to walk

In the contexts of Senegal and Sierra Leone, two countries with high levels of GBV and active anti-GBV movements, this study: • examines the interplay between gender norms and GBV • explores women’s and feminists’ perspectives on the role of their activism in changing harmful GBV-enabling gender norms, and • interrogates the factors that contribute to norm changes associated with a reduction in GB. [...] While predominantly male religious and traditional leaders in both Senegal and Sierra Leone use Islamic and Christian teaching and doctrine to justify the oppression and subjugation of women, Dieng (2020) critiques the contradictions between contemporary subjective and restrictive interpretations and the historically empowered roles of women in Islam. [...] 18 Percentage Gender-based violence in West Africa: how women’s and feminist movements are driving norm change Contextualising women’s activism on GBV in Senegal and Sierra Leone Against the background of a long history of women’s mobilisations around multiple women’s issues, the activism of women’s and feminist movements on GBV in both Senegal and Sierra Leone has been critical to the contesting. [...] These include the UN Charter, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Platform of Action, the Maputo Protocol, the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, the constitutive frameworks of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda and various child protection protocols. [...] The existence of this ‘outrage machine’ in the contexts of Sierra Leone and Senegal appears to have been one of the key factors responsible for the convergence of anti-GBV actors in multi-actor mobilisations that other participants credit for the passage of key laws and policies (interviews, Dakar 30 Gender-based violence in West Africa: how women’s and feminist movements are driving norm change a.