Célestine Ouezzin Coulibaly


Makoukou Célestine Ouezzin Coulibaly-Traoré, née Macoucou Traoré, was an anti-colonial leader in French West Africa. She helped to set up the women's section of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain in Côte d'Ivoire and Upper Volta, becoming its secretary general in 1948. In 1958, she was appointed Upper Volta's Minister of Social Affairs, probably making her the first woman to join a cabinet in any of the French-speaking West African governments.

Biography

Ouezzin Coulibaly was born in the Banfora region in the south-west of today's Burkina Faso, then known as Upper Volta. Known at birth as Macoucou Traoré, she was the daughter of Balla Traoré, who was chief of the Sindou Canton. Her education culminated in a teaching diploma. In 1930, she married Daniel Ouezzin Coulibaly, obtaining the name Célestine in 1931 when she and her husband were baptized as Roman Catholics.
She helped to set up the women's section of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain in Côte d'Ivoire and Upper Volta, becoming its secretary general in 1948. Ouezzin Coulibaly was one of those who led some 1,500 women in a march to the prison at Grand-Bassam on 24 December 1949 calling for the release of their husbands who, as members of the PDCI-RDA independence movement, had been jailed without trial by the French colonial authorities. Together with fellow leaders Anne-Marie Rachi, Marguérite Sacoum, Odette Yacé and Marie Koré, she can therefore be considered one of the pioneers of the independence of the Ivory Coast.
On 24 October 1958, Ouezzin Coulibaly was appointed Upper Volta's Minister of Social Affairs, Housing and Employment. Her appointment, probably the first for a women in French West Africa, seemed to be a promising development. It was not, however, quite as revolutionary as it might have seemed as it occurred only six weeks after the death of her husband, who had been President of the Council in Upper Volta. Although his death probably played an important part in her appointment, as a trained schoolteacher and one of the country's few literate women, she was in fact fully qualified for the position.
After she left the position in 1959, despite becoming the first female member of the national assembly, the fact that she did not obtain a government post after Upper Volta's independence in 1960 could be considered a backward step for the political role of women. Representing Upper Volta, Ouezzin Coulibaly was elected to the senate of the French Community on 30 April 1959 where she sat on the Committee for Transport and Telecommunications. She held the position until 16 March 1961.