Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim

Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim(born 1933), Arabic: فاطمة أحمد إبراهيم‎‎, Sudanese writer, women rights activist and Socialist leader.^[1]

Early life

Ibrahim was born in 1933^[2] in Khartoum. She came from an educated family, her grandfather was the headmaster at the first Sudanese School for boys. He was also the Imam in his neighborhood's mosque. Fatima's father graduated from Gordon Memorial College and worked as a teacher. Fatima's mother was amongst the first generation of girls who attended the school. Fatima grew up during the time of the colonial Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Her father was expelled from teaching in a government school when he refused to teach lessons using English.^[3] After that her father moved to teach in a popular school.

Career

After she started at Omdurman Girls' Secondary School she began to support women's rights. She created a wall newspaper called Elra'edda, or in Arabic الرائدة or in English Pioneer girls. Her newspaper focused on women rights and she also wrote in newspapers at that time again under an assumed code name.^[3] Fatima conducted the first women strike in Sudan and the reason of strike her school administration decided to omit the science lessons and replaced it by Family science lesson and the strike was successful. Her activities went beyond the school; in 1947 she founded Intellectual Women Association, in 1952 she worked with other women and founded Aletahad Elnees'y Alsodanni or Arabicالاتحاد النسائي or Sudanese Women's Union, which she belonged to the executive committee; then a sphere of action of Women's Union opened membership to all women in Sudan and WU opened branches in different provinces in Sudan. The agenda of Women's Union at that time, according to an amendment to its constitution in 1954, focused on the right to vote, women suffrage, and the right of women to act as representatives in all legislative, political, and administrative corporations. At WUshe also worked to establish equality with men in wages and technical training, and helped to remove illiteracy among women. Because of WU's objectives, there occurred clashes with the political right such as Jabihat El-methaiq elaslami or Islamic Pledge Front. In 1955 Fatima became a chief editor of Sawat al-Maraa Magazine or Woman's Voice Magazine (it is published by Women's Union), and this magazine later plays an essential role in the overthrow of the Ibrahim Abboud regime. In 1954 Fatima's joined the Sudanese Communist Party(SCP), and in a short period Fatima became a member of the Central Committee of the SCP (SCP was the first Sudanese Party which women had a formation inside the party since 1946). In 1956-1957, Fatima became the president of Women's Union, and one of her objectives was for the independence of the union from their affiliation and domination of SCP, and she widened the participation of women with difference backgrounds. In 1965 Fatima was elected to enter the parliament, to become the first deputy Sudanese women.^[1] The constitutional crisis caused by the illegal exclusion of the democratically elected SCP members from the Sudanese parliament, which was spearheaded by Sadiq al Mahdi caused much acrimony between the SCP and the Umma Party. In 1969, when Jaafar Muhammad al-Nemieri took a power by military coup with supported by SCP, activities of Women's Union were spread out and women gained many rights in difference fields, but the honeymoon between Sudanese Communist party and Jaafar al-Nemieri was ended after a huge dispute which led in July 1971 to a military coup supported by SCP led by Hashim Elatta, but the coup failed after a few days in a power and Nimiri returned to power again which led to execution to the leaders of coup and SCP and among them Alshafi Ahmed Elshikh a workers union leader and the husband of Fatima, after that Fatima was placed in house arrest for several years, and arrested many times during the Nemieri regime. In 1990 Fatima left Sudan after the Omar Hassan al-Bashir military coup, and joined the opposition in exile as the President of the banned Sudanese Women's Union. In 1991 Fatima was elected President of the Women International Democratic Federation. She returned to Sudan in 2005 after reconciliation between the government and Opposition, and was been appointed as a deputy in the parliament representing the SCP. Her brother is also a writer and involved in politics Salah Ahmed Ibrahim,^[3] she has one son from her husband Elshafi named Mohammed Ahmed.

She retired from political leadership in 2011.^[1]

Awards

• UN award for Outstanding Achievements in the Field of Human Rights.(1993)
• The Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought for the year 2006 in Berlin.

Works

• Hassadanna Khill'al Ashroon A'mm'a, Arabic حصادنا خلال عشرين عاماً, or (Our Harvest During Twenty Years).Khartoum: Sudanese Women's Union Press, n.d.
• Tariqnu ila el-Tuharur, (Our Road to Emancipation)." (n.d.).
• el-Mara el-Arabiyya wal Taghyir el-Ijtimai, Arabic المرأة العربية والتغيير الاجتماعي or The Arab Women's and The Social Change.1986
• Holla Gadie'a alahoal al-shekhssia,Arabic حول قضايا الأحوال الشخصية

or Personal Status Affairs.

• Gadie'a Alm'ar'a el-A'mela Al-sodania, Arabic قضايا المرأة العاملة السودانية, or The Affairs of Sudanese Workers Women's.
• An'a Awaan Eltageir Lakeen!,Arabic !آن آوان التغيير ولكن or It's Time for Change but!
• Atfallana we'l Re'aia El-sehi'a,Arabic أطفالنا والرعاية الصحية, or Our Children and Health Care.
• Arrow at Rest. In Women in Exile, ed. Mahnaz Afkhami, 191-208: University Press of Virginia, 1994.
• Sudan's Attack on Women's Rights Exploits Islam. Africa News 37, no. 5 (1992): 5.

References