Dublin (Ireland), July 6, 2015 (SPS) .- Women in the Sahrawi culture are seen as powerful and are leaders in their community. They are the doctors in the camp hospitals, the scientists in the small laboratory which makes basic drugs for the refugees, the teachers in the school and the ones who call the shots under the tented roofs, said The Independent.
In a post published in its african section, the irish daily report that the journalist “Graham Clifford travelled to the Sahara camps and met these strong women of the desert”.
Clifford noted that saharawi women strength is reflected in her speech. One of these women, Tumana Ahmed, told him that “while their fathers, husbands and sons fought under the burning Sahara sun, “the women literally built the camps, the little homes, the schools, the facilities, meagre as they were. They did everything in and outside of the home. They put up the tents and made them habitable. They created a community when people felt they had none”.
“You ask me if one day a woman will be president of our Republic and I tell you yes, why not, I would certainly vote for her. We are strong here and have equality with men”, Abida Mohamed Buzeid explains in her animated style”, wrote Clifford. “But you see this has always been the way in our nomadic culture. The woman is key to the family structure and to its survival and so have always been treated with respect amongst Saharawis”, she added.
And if it’s decided to return to war the likes of Tumana Ahmed said the Western Saharan women will not be found wanting. This determination is seen in the words of Tumana Ahmed : “We will do what we must for a Free Western Sahara. If that means fighting and dying in the desert then so be it, I will do it without thinking twice. I would gladly give my life if it meant my country could be free.”
“In 1991 when the guns fell silent the United Nations promised that, with co-operation from Morocco, a referendum on self-determination would be granted to the native people of Western Sahara – the Sahrawi people in the camps celebrated, they felt they had achieved their goal and prepared to return home.
But that referendum has never materialized – the Sahrawis say Morocco, supported in the UN Security Council by their former colonizer France, have stalled the process and fear they will never allow a referendum to take place”, noted the post, highlighting that the saharawi citizens who stayed at the occupied territories under the controle of Morocco, “ face imprisonment and harsh treatment from Moroccan state forces when they publicly call for freedom of fly the flag of the SADR. Few foreign journalists have been allowed into the remote territory to confirm or deny the claims”. SPS
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