Nigeria

Proceedings of the CSW panel discussion on violence against women and girls justified in the name of culture

Publication Date: 
March, 2010


On March 3rd, a panel discussion on violence against women and girls justified in the name of culture was held by the Violence is Not our Culture (VNC) campaign during the 54th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

Stoning is Not our Culture: A Comparative Analysis of Human Rights and Religious Discourses in Iran and Nigeria

Publication Date: 
March, 2010
Mufuliat Fijabi

 

Stoning is a cruel form of torture that is used to punish men and women for adultery and other 'improper' sexual relations. It is currently sanctioned by law and carried out by state actors in at least two countries, and at least seven individuals have been stoned to death in the last five years.

Zuwayra Shinkafi and Sani Yahaya

Zuwayra Shinkafi (f) and Sani Yahaya (m) (Nigeria)
Crime: Extra-marital sex or “Adultery”
July 2003

Zuwayra Shinkafi, a young teenage girl was married to an unnamed man and lived in the village of Shinkafi. She was having a consensual extra-marrital relationship with Sanj Yahaya, a teenage boy from Gusau village. A local monitoring group got news of the affair and arrested both of them in Gusau, where they were tried by the Upper Sharia Court, charged with the `crime`of sex outside marraige and subsequently flogged, all within two or three days.