It was the iconic image of a woman protester that came to define Sudan’s revolution, and women made up the majority of demonstrators – but activists complain that they have been almost entirely excluded from the new system.

For three decades, Omar al-Bashir enforced a raft of oppressive laws aimed at subduing women, apparently with the objective of satisfying the country’s ultra-conservative Islamic forces, which propped up his regime.

Child marriage was allowed, marital rape was permitted, and women were not allowed to wear trousers in public.

It was perhaps unsurprising, then, that women made up a majority of demonstrators when popular protests swept the capital starting in December 2018, eventually leading to Bashir’s removal on 11 April.

But politics quickly returned to being a boys’ club, according to campaigners. Civil society groups and the country’s military began to negotiate over the country’s political future, and women have once again been pushed aside.

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests Show all 12 1 /12 The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests Khadija Saleh, 41, a political activist and blogger, poses for a photograph in Khartoum, Sudan. After six years abroad, Saleh returned to her home country when people took to the streets demanding change. She was at a sit-in near the defence ministry in Khartoum on 3 June when security forces stormed the site. The area had become a centre for anti-government protests. Saleh said she was beaten with sticks, and still wears bandages on her wounds. ‘I came back from a safer place because I want a better future for this country,’ she said. Photos Reuters The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests Awadiya Mahmoud Koko Ahmed, 60, is the head of Food and Tea Sellers Union. She said: ‘I went to see the sit-in area to check what is happening there. I served them free tea with the money my daughter gave me. And we made a kitchen as a group of union members. We prepared food every day. All the people were good. They called me “mom”. When I was in America, I saw that even animals had rights. If I was the president, I would make sure that there was justice. I would treat everyone equally.’ Reuters/Umit Bektas The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests Duha Mohmed, 23, escaped the sit-in site at the beginning of the June raid, returning later to help the injured. The student said she was also motivated by a desire for a better life. ‘I don't want to wear headscarf, but it is not my choice. I want my right to wear what I want,’ she said. Reuters/Umit Bektas The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests Shems Osman, 32, is an employee at an international company. Osman studied psychology in Canada. She has Canadian citizenship but she chose to return to Sudan. She said: ‘In Sudan it is definitely different how women carry themselves and how they are treated, and I think this is because of our African culture more than our Arab culture. Sudanese women are just naturally strong. So, they are naturally on the frontline and they are naturally a part of revolution.’ Reuters/Umit Bektas The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests Mai Atya, 27, is a musician. Atya said she was beaten during the raid. She said: ‘My main objective like many others is that we believe there should be a change; a good change in a good direction. I was at the sit-in area during the raid. I heard gun shots and ran away but when I jumped over a fence a Rapid Support Force (RSF) soldier caught us. They kept beating us again and again ... they think women should stay at home.’ Reuters/Umit Bektas The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests Amel Tajeldin, 41, a housewife and mother of four. Tajeldin said she would take turns with her husband to watch the children so that she could go out to protest. ‘While it was his turn to look after the children, I took part in the demonstrations,’ she said. She used to teach songs to street children in a makeshift tent at the sit-in. On 3 June, members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces shouted at her and other protesters and told them to run, she said. ‘We ran. We were surrounded by soldiers and policemen,’ she said. Both her arms are now wrapped in bandages. ‘While we were running, they beat us. To protect my head, I used my hands. This is why my two arms are broken,’ she said. ‘The ones like us beaten by police were lucky, the ones beaten by RSF members were brutally injured.’ Reuters/Umit Bektas The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests Nagda Mansour, 39, is a translator. Mansour was imprisoned for 75 days after attending a demonstration in December. She said it was difficult for many to accept the idea of negotiating with the military because of its leadership’s involvement in the war in Darfur. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), headed by the deputy leader of the council Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, are accused of committing atrocities in Darfur – charges officials have in the past denied. ‘The finalisation of an agreement with the military council remains the beginning not the end,’ said Mansour. ‘We as human rights defenders want to have a guarantee for transitional justice in Sudan.’ Reuters/Umit Bektas The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests Hadia Hasaballah, 42, is a counsellor and political activist. Hasaballah works for an NGO dealing with the victims of the 3 June raid. She and her team are supporting more than 100 victims. ‘This regime thinks in a traditional way,’ she said. ‘They know that if they humiliate the women, they will humiliate the whole people... None of the Sudanese women will officially say that they were raped because of the stigma.’ Reuters/Umit Bektas The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests Samra Siralkhatim, 21, is a student. During the June protests, Siralkhatim hid from the military in various people’s homes for five days. She said: ‘Sudanese are almost like refugees in their own country. During the June 3 raid night, we sought refuge from the military like we did in previous attacks. That time, they let us go into the defence ministry compound. But this time, the doors were closed during the raid. Security personnel were laughing and a member of the military behind the fence told us that the military was “taking a holiday”,’ she said. Reuters/Umit Bektas The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests Mahi Aba-Yazid, 35, is unemployed. Under President Omar al-Bashir’s rule, women’s lives were tightly controlled by men, even the way they dressed. Morality laws meant that a woman could be arrested for wearing trousers. For that reason, Aba-Yazid wore trousers while she called for change at the sit-in site. She believes she was beaten more because of this choice. ‘There was already a bullet in my arm. I was bleeding but they continued to beat me,’ she said. Reuters/Umit Bektas The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests Nahid Gabralla, 53, is a human rights activist. Gabralla said she was beaten with sticks and threatened with rape at the sit-in. ‘Sudan can be better,’ she said. ‘My daughter deserves to live in a nice country... We will fight for a democratic Sudan, real change and for our rights.’ Reuters/Umit Bektas The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests Manal Farah, 49, is a housewife. Farah lost her son, a 22-year-old university student, when security forces stormed the sit-in. She said he insisted on protesting even though she asked him to stay home. ‘The aim of the government is to convince mothers of revolutionaries to prevent their sons to join the revolution, but no matter what we say to them they will never stop before achieving their objectives,’ Farah said. ‘When he started in university, he started to ask why there is corruption in Sudan. He said there must be a change, a new Sudan ... I pray for my son’s dreams to come true.’ Reuters/Umit Bektas

Although they made up an estimated 60 to 70 per cent of demonstrators that took down Bashir, women are almost entirely absent from political leadership positions hashing out the country’s future.

The high-wire negotiations have a familiar uniform of suits and ties on one side and camouflaged uniforms on the other.

“Where are the women?” jokes Sara Abdelgalil, one of the few top officials in the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), the group that organised the protests.

“For the last 30 years, women were invisible in politics and we didn’t have women at the top of these organisations.”

And the lack of female leaders in Sudan’s democratic movement is not just a question of equality for the sake of equality, say women’s activists, but will affect the quality of the transition and, ultimately, the success of the revolution.

The collapse of Bashir’s rule was followed by negotiations between civilian groups and the army, aimed at reaching a power-sharing agreement.

But the civilian groups have fallen into vicious disputes, in part over the fact that the men at the negotiating table do not accurately reflect those demonstrators who catalysed the revolution.

Of the dozens of civilians who have participated in the negotiations, only one is a woman, Mervat Hamadelneel, about whom little is known.

There has been criticism that the leadership of civilian groups, called the Forces of Freedom and Change, has been more willing to compromise with the country’s junta than the demonstrators they represent would like.

“The lack of diversity makes the negotiating team extremely closed-minded and they can’t come up with the results that represent the revolutionary forces,” says Hala Alkharib, the regional director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa.

“Most of the political parties who are currently negotiating on behalf of the Sudanese people did not invest on addressing the challenges of women, so women are not interested in joining.”

At a neighbourhood forum on a hot Khartoum evening, there is a preview of Sudan’s potential political future.

Samahir Mubarak, a 28-year-old pharmacist-turned revolutionary leader, lectures on a stage draped in Sudanese flags

Talks about Sudan’s political future have dragged on in part because the junta has demanded control over the next government and wants immunity for the many crimes it is accused of, including a 3 June massacre that killed more than 100 people, and the rap-sheet of allegations during the genocide in Darfur.

The civilian negotiators are willing to accept that, but many protesters are not. Mubarak is one of the most prominent faces of Sudan’s new political era, and she is considering a career in politics.

“We are hopefully going into a new democratic era. Political parties need to reorganise by involving more people, and there is no way you are going to get the votes of women if their views are not going to be represented,” Mubarak says.

For the first time Mubarak can remember, a majority of speakers that night are women.

Civilians rushed into hospitals as Sudanese forces violently clear sit-in

Mubarak does not like to plan her speeches in detail, but prefers to feed off the energy of the audience in front of her.

“I rely on my instinct,” Mubarak says. “I think it is genetic because my mum is good.”

Mubarak believes that women will naturally rise up into political leadership positions in a new democratic era that rewards parties for broader membership. But others are taking a more immediate approach.

Protesters, largely women, demonstrated outside the SPA headquarters on Saturday to demand more representation in the country’s political future.

Listening to Mubarak speak are a few hundred men in clean white jalabiyas. The robed men sit on one side in thin plastic chairs, and a handful of women sit on the other. This well-off neighbourhood used to be a staunch supporter of Bashir and his regime, but after Mubarak is done speaking she is crowded by admirers.

A group of boys tell her how the neighbourhood has transformed to support the revolution, and a woman asks her details for public demonstrations taking place the next day.

Mubarak appears to represent the revival of Sudan’s female leaders who were decimated under Bashir’s era. Perhaps Sudan’s biggest feminist icon is socialist writer and thinker Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim, born in 1932, who became the country’s first female member of parliament in 1965 and died in London in 2017.

Sudan’s protesters paid homage to Ibrahim by putting her face on signs bearing the slogan “Our mother Fatima”. Graffiti artists have tagged her image across Khartoum’s crumbling walls.

Ibrahim “was determined and strong, even in high school”, says Fatima Elgalil, a historian of women’s rights in Sudan and a colleague of the former journalist.

Ibrahim challenged some of the repressive cultural and legal norms in Sudan, creating a viral magazine that compared women’s rights in Sudan to other countries. But Ibrahim preferred to work in stages of change and did not challenge all of the country’s oppressive norms at once, according to Elgalil.

“You must be flexible,” Elgalil explains of Ibrahim’s tactics.

But the generational gap of Sudanese feminists is evident as Elgalil speaks. Elgalil is 84 and her granddaughter Zeinab is 17. As Zeinab listens to her grandmother talk, she agrees with the objectives, but not the approach of working in gradual steps.

“When they grew up and fought in this regime, it was by being women who fit into society.” Zeinab says. “But for us, living in this environment has been very repressive.”