Senegal enacts legal and policy reforms, commits to meaningful empowerment and true equality

Legal reform in Senegal has included a law on equality in elected public bodies and a stipulation that Senegalese women can pass their citizenship to their foreign spouse and children. New policies provide free caesarean operations in public hospitals and extend social security grants to help the most vulnerable. An essential plank of the emergency community development programme is to lighten burdens on women working in rural areas. Senegal is committed to giving meaning to the empowerment of women, ensuring that women’s participation in society is not measured just in terms of numbers, but in terms of quality so that true equality is achieved. Speaking at the Global Leaders’ Meeting on 27 September 2015, President Macky Sall said: “We are committed to giving meaning to the empowerment of women. ... We want to ensure that the presence of women is not just shown in terms of quantity but in terms of quality, so that we have true equality.”