Guardian Weekly: Role of women in Western Sahara conflict
Jacob Mundy
July 2013
As dusk enveloped the salmon-pink houses of Laayoune, the brightly coloured robes of women stood out in a mass of protesters in the centre of the capital of Western Sahara chanting for independence from Morocco. While other African colonies threw off occupiers one by one, this desert expanse on the continent’s north-western coast remains a disputed territory controlled primarily by next-door Morocco and locked in a nearly 40–year struggle for the right to choose its fate. Unusually for a Muslim society, women play a prominent role in Western Sahara’s independence movement.
