A court in Sudan overturned the prior death sentence of a teenager named Noura Hussein Hammad.
Hammad murdered her husband. The claimed reason for the murder has a background. Hammad was forced into a child marriage and then underwent marital rape in Sudan. When the husband tried to rape her again, she killed him.
The article stated, “Her legal team told CNN on Tuesday that Hussein, now 19, has been given a five-year jail term for killing the 35-year-old man. The court ordered her family to pay 337,000 Sudanese pounds ($18,700 or €15,970) in "blood money" to the man's family.”
The lawyers for Hammad want to appeal the jail term and payment of Hammad, even though she was not killed. She was given the prison sentence and blood money fine. According to Hammad, her family forced the marriage on her at age 15.
She did finish school. Then there was a public wedding three years later. The husband wanted to consummate the marriage. However, she refused his sexual advances. At that point, several of his family members held her down as he raped her.
He raped her again one day later. She went to her family for help, but her family turned her over to the police. She was forced to live with the man. She did not eat or leave her room for the first days of being with him.
Hammad said, “On the ninth day his relatives came, his uncle told me to go to the bedroom. I said no so he dragged me by my arm into the bedroom and his cousin slapped me. All of them tore at my clothing. His uncle held me down by my legs and each of the other two held down my arms. He stripped and had me while I wept and screamed. Finally, they left the room. I was bleeding, I slept naked.”
The following day, Hammad recounts, was when he grabbed her, threw her on the bed, and attempted to climb on top of her. She fought back. She found a knife under the pillow. He cut her hand and bit on her shoulder.
The court overturned the decision based on the acceptance of Hammad’s recall of the events. One key point of the narrative was finding the knife under the pillow prior to the stabbing. It was not from the kitchen.
The case has garnered the attention of the international world with an enormous number of petitions from around the world calling for Hammad’s case to be dropped. The legal marriage age in Sudan is 10. Marital rape is not seen as a crime.
Amnesty International called Hammad’s case a need for a call for change in Sudan.
“While the quashing of this death sentence is hugely welcome news, it must now lead to a legal review to ensure that Noura Hussein is the last person to go through this ordeal,” said Seif Magango, Amnesty International's Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes, “Noura Hussein was the victim of a brutal attack by her husband and five years' imprisonment for acting in self-defense is a disproportionate punishment … The Sudanese authorities must take this opportunity to start reforming the laws around child marriage, forced marriage and marital rape, so that victims are not the ones who are penalized.”
Photo Credits: Inquirer.net
