As an international authority on African legal systems, human rights and development, Cornell University’s Muna Ndulo has keen insight into some of the conflicts and turbulent events that have dominated world news in recent months.
Ndulo is a professor of law and director of Cornell University’s Institute for African Development.
In 2009, he co-edited with Margaret Grieco the book “Power, Gender and Social Change in Africa,” a revelatory piece that explored issues related to the struggle for gender equality in Africa. In 2011, Ndulo published “African Customary Law, Customs, and Women’s Rights” in the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, which examined how traditional, customary laws in many African countries were contributing to the continued oppression and abuse of women and girls.
Mistreatment of young women in parts of Africa became evident just as Ndulo was being interviewed by Diverse in early May. At that time, reports were beginning to surface about more than 250 Nigerian school girls being kidnapped by a terrorist group known as Boko Haram in order to prevent them from being educated. The kidnappers boasted that they intended to sell the girls to warlords.
The situation set off an international crisis.
In Ndulo’s 2011 journal article he stated, “The discrimination of women is rooted in inequality, male domination, poverty, aggression, misogyny, and entrenched customs and myths. The real solution to the problem is eradication of customs that undermine the dignity of women.”
