Sudanese Teenager Sentenced to Death for Killing Husband She Says Raped Her

A Sudanese teenager has been sentenced to death for killing her husband in what she said was self-defense as he attempted to rape her, in a case that has ignited international outrage.

The court ruling, which shone a light on rights abuses and the prevalence of arranged child marriages in the country, has prompted condemnation from rights groups and an outpouring of support on social media for the teenager, Noura Hussein.

Hussein, now 19, was forced to marry Abdulrahman Mohamed Hammad when she was just 16, advocates for the young woman say. She had no desire to get married, however, and wanted to finish school, so she fled her home to live with a relative. But the marriage contract continued without her consent.

Hussein was eventually persuaded to return home, and her parents forced her to move in with Hammad in April 2017.

It was May 2, 2017, rights groups say, that he raped her as three members of his family held her down. When he again tried to rape her the following morning, she grabbed a knife and fatally stabbed him in a scuffle, according to Amnesty International. Hussein has been in jail ever since.

She was found guilty last month, and her death sentence was handed down Thursday.

“The Sudanese authorities must quash this grossly unfair sentence and ensure that Noura Hussein gets a fair retrial that takes into account her mitigating circumstances,” Seif Magango, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for East Africa, said in a statement. “Noura Hussein is a victim, and the sentence against her is an intolerable act of cruelty.”

Social media users have denounced the ruling using the hashtag #JusticeforNoura, sharing illustrations of a woman in a white headscarf.

Supporters of Hussein had gathered at the court in Omdurman, Sudan’s second-largest city, throughout her trial. Badr Eldin Salab, 26, an activist with the Afrika Youth Movement who is based in Khartoum, the capital, was there when the sentence was handed down and said he believed the case spoke to the level of injustice that women faced in Sudan’s legal system.

“The case of Noura is not isolated from the injustice, acts and policy of the Sudanese government system that implements sharia laws,” Salab said when reached by phone. “These laws are the main problem for women in Sudan.”

Under a Sudanese law introduced in 1991, marital rape is not considered rape and therefore not a crime. Hussein’s lawyers have 15 days to appeal the decision.

Women have long been marginalized in Sudan, which was ranked 140th out of 159 countries in a 2015 United Nations report on gender inequality.

A third of women in the country are wed before their 18th birthday, many in arranged marriages, according to statistics from UNICEF, which says it is legal for children as young as 10 to marry there.

Randa Elzein, who works for the Seema Center, a Khartoum-based organization that has advocated for Hussein’s release, was also in court when the sentence was handed down.

“Noura’s case is not singular or unprecedented,” Elzein said in a telephone interview. “I feel that if we don’t stand up for her, then no one will, and if we don’t give her case recognition on a national and international level, then she will fall a victim to an unjust justice system.”