Armed men have arrested prominent Sudanese women’s rights campaigner Amira Osman in a night-time raid on her home in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, her sister said. Osman’s arrest comes amid, what activists say, a campaign of arrests of civil society and pro-democracy figures since a military takeover in October.

The United Nations mission in Sudan said on Twitter it was outraged by Osman’s arrest, citing a “pattern of violence against women’s rights activists” that risked reducing their participation in politics.

Much has already changed for women since the protests: laws restricting freedom of dress, movement and work were repealed, and female genital mutilation was criminalized.

On 8 April 2019, Alaa Salah took to the streets in protest of the declining economic state of her country, just like thousands of other students and young people in Sudan. She had no idea that she would become the face of the Sudanese protest movement.

By 11 April, the President of Sudan had been arrested, and a photo of Salah, standing atop a car in all white and leading a crowd in a chant, had gone viral.

Sudan swore in its first cabinet since the removal of former president Omar al-Bashir in April following nationwide protests against his rule.

The 18-member cabinet led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, which includes four women, took the oath at the presidential palace in Khartoum on Sunday.

In Sudan, women are well-represented in the workforce. They are not lacking in any public spaces. And over the past few months, they have made up half, if not more, of the protest crowds making demands of their new transitional government.