Senegal: Women's rights and Islam

I am Senegalese-American, born and raised in Senegal, which is a predominantly Muslim country. As I agree and I identify with the struggle of women all over Africa (Women's Rights and Islam
), I find this article of great interest. However, I feel that the usage of "Islamic" as attributes to explain certain misogynistic phenomenona in Africa should be avoided. In fact, the problem is that many men and women think that this is the case, and thus changes come slowly because people believe that it these practices are mandated by religion. I am a Muslim and I am educated, therefore I know better. I think that there needs to be a campaign to show people that these behaviours are in fact un-Islamic and that the prophet Muhammad (saw) was in fact a defender of women's rights. Many Muslims do not know this, and in fact many Muslim men do not know this! The reason why? Well, simply because most people do not really know Islam in Africa as well as in the Middle East. Because of traditions, religious manipulators and language and literacy battles, people are conditioned to follow blindly. The campaign needs to be around exposing the un-Islamic practices of people, not by labelling them as being in line with Islam. If anyone picked up the Qu'ran and read it, they would clearly see that women have a very high status in the religion. I think the men of the Parliament in Niger should do a bit more reading.