Women's Rights in the Comoros: Between Constitutional Legislations and Social Reality (2005-2018)

Abstract

This article sheds light on women's issues in the Comoros, their suffering, the transformations in their status, and their rights between constitutional legislation and their social reality, and the challenges they have faced. This is achieved through a historical description and an analytical approach that highlights the gap between the announced constitutional changes and reforms, and the accompanying ratification of a number of human rights conventions and instruments related to women's rights and empowerment at the international and regional levels, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) of 1994, and the prevailing social and cultural practices and customs. This was the primary objective of the research, which included sub objectives ranging from examining the international and constitutional framework and the role of the United Nations in protecting women's rights in the Comoros since the 1990s, through the 2005 Family Code in the Comoros (which generated considerable hope for improving women's status), to analyzing their social, economic, and constitutional standing, highlighting its fragility in the civil and political spheres, and their empowerment within the context of legislation and legal pluralism (Islamic/civil/customary), the amendments to the Comorian constitution, the 2018 referendum on it, and  impact on women's status and their living and social realities. This study employed historical research method, as well as descriptive and analytical approaches, by tracing events and describing the evolution of women's status in the Comoros across different historical periods, and analyzed constitutional and legislative texts and international conventions, linking them to social, economic, and political indicators that reflected women's realities, and the extent of their capacity to effect real change in the Comoros.