GENDER ALERT: Noura is saved for now

#JusticeforNoura

inline_207_https://sihanet.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/justice-for-noura-1-actual.jpg

A notice came to the Women’s Ombudsman prison that Noura is no longer being charged under Article 130 – capital punishment in the Sudan Criminal Act, where the appeal court has accepted the lawyers appeal. She is now being charged for five years in jail for the self-defense crime and payment of three hundred and fifty thousand Sudanese Pounds as diya money to the family of the deceased – which is equivalent to ten to twelve thousand US dollars. If the diya is not paid within the allocated time frame, then Noura will have to serve a longer time in prison. This sentence however might be contested by the family of the deceased.

As SIHA, we alert that Noura is still being punished for being forcefully married and raped. No changes are expected to occur in Sudan’s personal status law imposing guardianship (wilayah) on women and girls’ decisions of marriage. Despite the fact that Sudan is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Children, the Sudan Personal Status Law allows girls to be married as of age 10 years. The Sudanese Personal Status Law emerges as demeaning to the identity of women and girls presenting them as inferior, unable to survive, decide and manage their lives without oversight from men.
Marital rape is also not clearly being addressed in the Sudanese law. Justice is still running its course but at least Noura is being saved for now, thanks to the huge public outcry and activism in Sudan and across the global arena.