When she was 18, Noura Hussein’s husband raped her. Now she faces the death penalty for attempting to protect herself, activists say.

Hussein fatally stabbed her husband, Abdulrahman Mohamed Hammad, last year in what her lawyers say was an act of self-defense. Last week, a court in Sudan sentenced her to death by hanging after she was found guilty in April of premeditated murder.

The case has put international attention on the plight of young women and girls who are forced into marriage, abused by their husbands and abandoned by their families.

Hussein has spent the past year in prison, but her ordeal began in 2014, when her parents forced her to marry Hammad. She ran away to live with an aunt for three years, but activists say her father lured her back home in 2017 and compelled her to get married.

When her husband attempted to consummate the union, Hussein resisted, and Hammad raped her with the help of his brother and two male cousins, who pinned her chest and legs, Hussein’s lawyer Adil Mohamed Al-Imam told CNN.

The next morning, when Hussein was alone with Hammad, he again forced himself on her, but she fought back, fatally stabbing him. She went to her family immediately after, and they turned her in to authorities.

‘The most cruel of punishments’

Rights groups, activists and international bodies have condemned the decision to sentence Hussein to death and have called on the Sudanese government to pardon her.

Seif Magango is Amnesty International’s deputy director for East Africa. He told VOA Thursday that Amnesty’s biggest concern is Hussein’s sentence. 

“The death penalty is really the most cruel of punishments in this case. It’s not befitting of the crime,” Magango said.

Hussein’s side of the story needs to be heard, Magango said, and she should be granted a retrial in which additional evidence is admitted.

“The argument that she had been raped by her husband was not entertained because, according to the court’s interpretation of the law, they said that marital rape does not exist and it is not recognized in the constitution of Sudan,” he said.

Her life could also be saved, Magango said, if Hammad’s family accepts a financial settlement, called “diya,” which they previously rejected.

“If the family were to accept (diya) and understand that she acted in self-defense and she did not plan to kill her husband and accepted the financial settlement, that would resolve the matter. And she wouldn’t have to be executed,” he said.

Child marriage

Family and economic pressures lead many women in Sudan to get married at a young age. About one-third of Sudanese girls are married by age 18, and 12 percent of girls marry by 15, according to a 2017 report by UNICEF.

Worldwide, 1 in 9 girls marries by 15, according to the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, a group focused on eliminating child marriage and other humanitarian work.

But Sudan’s legal system provides few protections for girls and young women whose families push them into early marriage. Children as young as 10 can be legally married, and for years a 1991 law had defined rape strictly as nonconsensual sex in adulterous relationships.

A 2015 amendment separated the two crimes, creating legal channels to prosecute marital rape, according to a 2016 report by the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies. But societal norms have led to interpretations that disadvantage women, rights groups say, and marital rape remains prevalent.

More calls to save Noura

Calls for the Sudanese government to prevent Hussein’s execution are growing. More than 700,000 people have signed a Change.org petition calling on the Sudanese government to spare her.

On Sunday, U.N. Women, the U.N. Population Fund and the U.N. Office of the Special Adviser on Africa issued a joint statement pleading “with the government of Sudan to save the life of Hussein and to protect the lives of all women and girls.”

The Delegation of the European Union to Sudan has also issued a statement expressing “their firm opposition to the death penalty, whatever the place and circumstances.”

Hussein’s lawyers have until May 25 to appeal the court’s decision. CNN reported Wednesday that Al-Imam had been barred from holding a press conference and intimidated at his office by security forces.
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The World Health Organization reports one confirmed case of the deadly Ebola virus in the city of Mbandaka, a city of more than one million 150 kilometers from Bikoro where the outbreak started.

WHO says as of May 15, 44 cases of Ebola have been reported in the DRC and more than 20 people have died. Except for the confirmed case in Mdbandaka, the other cases have been in Bikoro, a remote, northwestern area that is very hard to reach.

The Ebola virus is endemic in Congo, and despite Congo’s experience with the disease, the difference between this one and previous outbreaks is the location.

Bikoro lies near two major rivers that could transport infected people to urban areas including Kinshasa and Brazzaville. Mbandaka is also on the Congo River about 4,000 kilometers north of Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, whose population is roughly ten million.

Dr. Peter Salama, WHO deputy director-general for emergency preparedness and response, called this latest news “a game changer.”

WHO’s regional director for Africa said WHO and its partners, including Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, are working to rapidly scale up the search for all contacts of the confirmed case in Mbandaka as well as those in Bikoro. The WHO is holding an emergency meeting Friday to evaluate the situation.

The speed of the WHO’s involvement and those of its partners is one of the major differences between this Ebola outbreak and the one that ravaged West Africa between 2014 and 2016.

And, despite the arrival of Ebola in an urban area, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General said “we now have better tools than ever before to combat Ebola. WHO and our partners are taking decisive action to stop further spread of the virus.”

Tedros led a delegation to the DRC May 13 that included Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, and Salama. They met with Congolese President Joseph Kabila and the country’s minister of health to evaluate the response and determine the next steps in stopping the virus.

Stephen Morrison, Director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, conducted research on the West African outbreak that claimed more than 11,000 lives and is carefully watching the current outbreak in a rural area in the northeast of the DRC.

“I thought it was very commendable and a great sign of the change of outlook that Dr. Tedros was personally there on the ground, and that was very important,” Morrison said. “It rallies the troops, it shows determination and commitment and speed.”

One of the changes from the 2014 outbreak is that the WHO has an emergency fund to get experts and materials in place. The first batch of an experimental vaccine, which proved to be safe and effective at the end of the epidemic in West Africa, has already arrived in Congo. It will be administered to health care workers and those exposed to the virus in just days.

Merck, the pharmaceutical company that makes the vaccine, has promised to supply however much is needed for this outbreak. The vaccine is not licensed, and some argue that since it works, it is no longer experimental.

A multidisciplinary team has been in Bikoro, where the outbreak first occurred since May 10. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has personnel in place. In addition, the World Food Program is providing an air bridge to get the vaccine and supplies to the affected region with several flights a day. Treatment centers that isolate the sick are operational, as are hand washing stations containing a solution of bleach and water to kill the virus.

Morrison said what is unfolding in Central Africa “shows a lot of learning and a different pattern of response.”

In 2014, it took more than six months for the international community to address that outbreak. By then, it was already spreading in the three impoverished West African countries.

Another difference: Ebola was unknown in West Africa in 2014. This is the ninth Ebola outbreak in the DRC since 1974, when the country was named Zaire and the virus was named after the Ebola River near the source of the outbreak.

Morrison says the response to this outbreak shows no complacency.

“We are very concerned,” added Salama. “And we are planning for all scenarios, including the worst case scenario.” In the massive Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in West Africa, the virus entered the capital cities in all three countries.

In Congo, the government, WHO and others are working to make sure, if at all possible, this doesn’t happen.
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A tale of a woman who flees the life of a gangster’s wife. The clash of the traditional versus the modern. A documentary look at a rising new musical sound.

Universal themes, told from the African perspective at the New York African Film Festival.

This year’s 25th annual festival features more than 70 films from 25 African nations and the African diaspora, with offerings in every genre, from comedy and satire to full- length dramatic features, documentaries, shorts and some hybrid-category films.

Festival founder and director Mahen Bonetti said every film has something that is intangibly, yet vividly, African about it “under the skin.”

“It’s atmosphere. It’s color. It’s language. It’s intonation,” he said. “And I think it comes from us being storytellers. It’s a living thing. You dip your foot in that stream, and the water feels different.”

Something for everybody

Offerings include the New York premiere of “Borders,” a feature film by Apolline Traoré of Burkina Faso. It’s about four women traveling by bus across several West African frontiers, starting in Dakar and traveling, via Bamako, Cotonou and Ouagadougou, to Lagos.

Also featured is “Makila,” a French-Congolese co-production about a 19-year-old girl who marries a gangster but goes into hiding to start a new life.

Lovers of politically tinged satire may seek out “Wonder Boy for President” — a charismatic unknown is tapped by corrupt politicians to run for president of South Africa.

Featured documentaries include “Tahar Cheriaa: Under the Shadow of the Baobab,” a Tunisian documentary about one of the core fathers of Pan-Africanism. There’s also “Birth of Afrobeat,” about the grassroots creation of the musical genre in Lagos.

Traditional values and the human heart clash in “Still Water Runs Deep,” a short feature film written and directed by Abbesi Akhamie, a young Nigerian-American. It centers on a stern family patriarch who searches in vain for a wayward son who has gone missing.

Akhamie said the main character reminded her of her own highly traditional father.

“Usually, he is in control of everything. He is the leader of his flock. But this time, when one of his sheep’ goes astray, it’s something he just can’t control. And how do you really deal with that as a man, as a father?”

Mixed reviews

Akhamie is proud that the film was selected by festival producers but noted its storyline received mixed reviews in Nigeria, where happy stories are the norm.

“This is very independent and raw,” she said. “Also, Nigerians don’t want negative images coming out of the country. It’s a very communal society. And if they see something they don’t like, they’ll tell you, ‘Don’t do that.’ They’re hypersensitive.”

Festival founder Bonetti, who comes from Sierra Leone, welcomes — even relishes — controversies over the films. She said audience views often run counter to type.

“When people leave the theater, I sometimes see the white person arguing that we are patronizing Africans,’ while the African is saying No! That’s how it is!’ And then everyone goes off and has a drink.”

Some films explore the African immigrant experience in the United States. Yusuf Kapadia directed “Mamadou Warma: Deliveryman,” a short documentary about a young man from Burkina Faso who works as a bicycle deliveryman in New York after being shot by police during a student protest in his homeland.

One of Bonetti’s favorites is “Purple Dreams.”

The film documents six disadvantaged African-American teenagers in North Carolina who find purpose and redemption in a local music and theater group.

“It’s a very triumphant story about young people facing so much adversity, but overcoming that adversity through culture. It keeps them alive. It keeps them out of jail. It gives that hope.”

In some cases, that hope was well-founded. One member of the troupe will soon make his debut in the Broadway hit musical “Hamilton,” while another has been accepted into the Ailey II Dance Company.

Bonetti acknowledged that putting on a film festival that explores the diversity and complexity of Africa and the African diaspora is a constant challenge.

“But what is beautiful is that all of these filmmakers keep giving us a face and a voice,” she said. “I’m beaming to be sharing this quality of work with our patrons here in New York and the world.”

The New York African Film Festival is co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and runs May 16 through May 21.
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