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Comoros Status of Women
Among men who can afford it, the preferred form of
marriage
appears to be polygyny with matrilocal residence. Although
possible, the first marriage is formally initiated with
the
grand mariage when possible, subsequent unions
involve
much simpler ceremonies. The result is that a man will
establish
two or even more households and will alternate residence
between
them, a reflection, most likely, of the trading origins of
the
Shirazi elite who maintained wives at different trading
posts.
Said Mohamed Djohar, elected president in 1990, had two
wives,
one in Njazidja and the other in Nzwani, an arrangement
said to
have broadened his appeal to voters. For men, divorce is
easy,
although by custom a divorced wife retains the family
home.
Islamic law recognizes only male ownership and
inheritance of
land. In Comoros, however, certain landholdings called
magnahouli are controlled by women and inherited
through
the female line, apparently in observance of a surviving
matriarchal African tradition.
Despite their lower economic status, women married to
farmers
or laborers often move about more freely than their
counterparts
among the social elite, managing market stands or working
in the
fields. On Mwali, where traditional Islamic values are
less
dominant, women generally are not as strictly secluded.
Women
constituted 40.4 percent of the work force in 1990, a
figure
slightly above average for sub-Saharan Africa.
Girls are somewhat less likely than boys to attend
school in
Comoros. The World Bank estimated in 1993 that 67 percent
of
girls were enrolled in primary schools, whereas 82 percent
of
boys were enrolled. In secondary school, 15 percent of
eligible
Comoran girls were in attendance, in comparison with about
19
percent of eligible boys.
Although the 1992 constitution recognizes their right
to
suffrage, as did the 1978 constitution, women otherwise
play a
limited role in politics in Comoros. By contrast, in
Mahoré
female merchants sparked the movement for continued
association
with France, and later, for continued separation from the
Republic of the Comoros
(see
The Issue of Mahoré, this
ch.).
Comoros accepted international aid for family planning
in
1983, but it was considered politically inexpedient to put
any
plans into effect. According to a 1993 estimate, there
were 6.8
births per woman in Comoros. By contrast, the figure was
6.4
births per woman for the rest of sub-Saharan Africa
(see Population
, this ch.).
In one of Comoran society's first acknowledgments of
women as
a discrete interest group, the Abdallah government
organized a
seminar, "Women, Family, and Development," in 1986.
Despite
participants' hopes that programs for family planning and
female
literacy would be announced, conference organizers
stressed the
role of women in agriculture and family life. Women fared
slightly better under the Djohar regime. In February 1990,
while
still interim president, Djohar created a cabinet-level
Ministry
of Social and Women's Affairs, and appointed a woman,
Ahlonkoba
Aithnard, to head it. She lasted until a few weeks after
Djohar's
election to the presidency in March, when her ministry was
reorganized out of existence, along with several others.
Another
female official, Situ Mohamed, was named to head the
second-tier
Ministry of Population and Women's Affairs, in August
1991. She
lost her position--and the subministry was
eliminated--hardly a
week later, in one of President Djohar's routine
ministerial
reshufflings. Djohar made another nod to women in February
1992,
when he invited representatives of an interest group, the
Women's
Federation, to take part in discussions on what would
become the
constitution of 1992. Women only apparently organized and
participated in a large demonstration critical of French
support
of the Djohar regime in October 1992, following government
suppression of a coup attempt.
Data as of August 1994
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