Senegal: Senior official dismissed after comments on the conditions of women

Senegalese President Macky Sall has fired a senior official who caused waves by publicly denouncing, on International Women’s Day, as “nonsense” traditions such as the ban on women working or shaking hands with men.

The president has “terminated the functions of Mr. Papa Amadou Sarr, Delegate General for Rapid Entrepreneurship of Women and Youth” (DER/FJ), the government announced in a statement issued Wednesday evening.

The government did not provide any explanation. But the dismissal of Papa Amadou Sarr was immediately linked by the press to the remarks he made on Tuesday, during the International Women’s Day.

These statements in front of an audience of men and women and in front of cameras have caused strong reactions on social networks. They have been interpreted as attacks against the precepts of Islam, in a country that is 95% Muslim and very practicing.

Marabouts, men considered wise and holy, play an important social role.

Papa Amadou Sarr, who had the rank of minister delegate, said he could not understand that in “the twenty-first century in Senegal we can still come out with nonsense such as: “No, it is not possible, no she cannot shake the hand of the marabout, the old man, and she cannot be in the same room”, and yet in the evening, as someone said to me, she can shake him much more than the hand”.

He mentioned “other incongruities” while acknowledging that he was “provocative”: the fact that women cannot work, that they do not receive the same salary as men with the same diplomas and experience, the inequality at the time of inheritance, or the prohibition of attending places of worship during menstruation, while “it is the same ‘clean’ woman who cooks for you, serves you food and shares your bed at night.”

The Senegalese society, reputedly tolerant, is sensitive to attacks on traditions and religion. An imam caused a stir two weeks ago when he said Catholics were “condemned in the same way” as Freemasons and Jews in Islam. The Senegalese president condemned these remarks.

DER/FJ aims at the inclusion of women and youth in the economy. It finances and supports business creation projects.