The Role of Women in Côte d'Ivoire
Beginning in the late 1980s, women began to see their roles in the Ivory Coast's society increasing. But for years, laws that demonstrated cultural conservatism restricted women's, roles causing an inequality between the sexes.
In 1939, the Mandel Decree declared that fourteen was the minimum age to be married. It furthermore made it mandatory that there was mutual consent for marriage. Later on in 1951, the Jacquinot Decree furthered women's rights by giving the state the power to protect women from claims to their services after their marriage. It also made it possible for women to obtain divorces more easily and invalidated in-laws' claims to any bride-price that had been paid to a woman's family to legitimize the marriage. Lastly, this decree accepted monogamy as the single legal and legitimate type of marriage, as well as made it legal for a couple to get married without the consent of their parents. These decrees not only changed the ideas behind marriage, but also put the colonial government in charge of women's rights.
The Houphouët-Boigny government went on to further promote women's rights by raising the minimum marriage age to eighteen, and by condemning the idea of male superiority over women. However, in the 1960s, the Ivoirian legislation gave husbands the right to control most of their wives' property and also made it impossible for a woman to create a bank account or get a job without her husband's permission. Furthermore, restrictions were added that made it harder for women to obtain divorces.
Women responded to these new government restrictions by establishing the Association of Ivoirian Women (Association des Femmes Ivoiriennes, AFI) in 1963. In 1976, Ivoirian women took further action, persuading the president to create the Ministry of Women's Affairs (Ministère de la Condition Féminine) and to make Jeanne Gervais (leader of the AFI) the minister. With her newfound position, Gervais worked to increase and improve education and job opportunities for women, and to obtain judicial equality for women.
So throughout the 1980s, women's education and societal status improved. In 1983 the government passed a law that allowed women to control part of their property after getting married and allowed them to address the courts to rectify their husbands' actions. By 1987, the number of women working and obtaining salaries had increased; one-sixth of the National University of Côte d'Ivoire's students were women; one-fourth of the civil service was women; and jobs in the fields of medicine, law, and business were all experiencing a rising female population.
~RZ