14 Year Old Child Bride Facing Death Penalty for Murdering Husband
14-year- old Wasilat Tasi’u is on trial for the murder of her 35-year-old husband. Nigerian teen was married to a man that she didn’t love. According to Zubeida Nagee, a women’s rights activist in Kano, “She protested but her parents forced her to marry him.” From a poor rural family, Wasilat is accused of murdering her husband, Umar Sani, by lacing his food with rat poison. Forced marriages and child brides common in the poverty-stricken northern Nigeria region. Her case calls into question the legality of trying a teenager for murder under criminal law and the rights of child brides….
FEMEN Activists Freed from Tunisian Jail
Three feminists with the radical protest group FEMEN were freed from a Tunisian jail Wednesday, after receiving suspended sentences from an appeal court for baring their breasts in public. One of their lawyers Bahri Souhaib said, their sentences had been suspended, and that they would leave Tunisia as soon as possible. They were sentenced to four months and one day in prison for offending public morals and threatening public order. The three were arrested outside the main courthouse in Tunis on May 29 during their topless protest against a planned gathering of radical Salafists, and in support of Amina Sboui,…
Women’s Rights Law Blocked by Mullahs in Afghanistan
The Afghan Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women has been blocked by religious lawmakers in Afghanistan, claiming it violated Islamic principles. The law has been in effect since 2009 as a Presidential decree and it was being brought before the parliament, because the lawmaker and women’s rights activist Fawzia Kofi wanted a parliamentary vote to prevent its potential reversal. Unfortunately, it was entirely withdrawn by the conservative opposition. The law criminalizes domestic violence against women, child marriage and forced marriages. It also bans the traditional practice of selling and buying women to settle disputes. It specifies that rape victims…
Happy International Women’s Day!
International Women’s Day (IWD) or as it was originally called International Working Women’s Day, is celebrated worldwide on March 8, every year. The first International Women’s Day was held on 28 February 1909 in the United States following a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, as a way to attract attention to the cause of gender equality. On August 1910 at the International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, Denmark, the groundwork for the first International Women’s Day was initiated, and by 1919, the day was established to be formally celebrated. Each year, countries and international organizations celebrate the…
Recent Comments