How a young mother was saved from death by stoning

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In March 2002, a young Nigerian Muslim woman was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery and conceiving a child out of wedlock.

Amina Lawal’s case attracted huge international attention and highlighted divisions between the Christian and Muslim regions in the country.

Hauwa Ibrahim, one of the first female lawyers from northern Nigeria, defended Amina and helped her secure an acquittal.

The case would have very personal consequences for Hauwa who went on to adopt Amina’s daughter.

She tells Vicky Farncombe how the ground-breaking case also changed attitudes in Nigeria towards defendants from poor, rural communities.

(Photo: Hauwa Ibrahim (left) with Amina Lawal, Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I love you and would kill before I would see you taken from me.
0:06.2	Lady Killers is back.
0:08.2	Join me Lucy Worsley to investigate infamous female criminals from the past.
0:13.2	It's really important that we listen to these voices about the society in which they lived.
0:18.0	We're seeking to understand these women from the
0:25.0	21st century feminists. We cannot put women into history on the basis of likeability.
0:26.0	Put all the women back, the sinners and the saints.
0:29.0	Lady Killers, listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:33.0	Hi, you're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:43.7	I'm taking you back to 2003 when one of Nigeria's first female Muslim lawyers
0:50.2	saved a young mother from a gruesome punishment.
0:55.0	Just 30 years old and sentenced to death by public stoning her only crime giving birth to her daughter out of wedlock. in a divorce Nigeria was convicted of adultery in an Islamic Sharia court.
1:14.8	But the case of Amina, there were so many pleasures, you know, I had a lot of debt threat.
1:19.6	That's how Ahraim, a human rights lawyer with a record of defending people from severe punishments.
1:26.3	On hearing about Amina's case from a BBC journalist, she visited the young mother's village
1:31.7	to see if she would like her help, but the initial
1:34.0	meeting did not go as expected.
1:36.7	And I spoke to Amina, she had a baby, and she had a bit of an attitude. If you want to help me, okay, if you don't want to help me, okay.
1:46.0	Were you surprised by Amina's attitude?
1:49.0	No, I wasn't because the issue of having pregnancy out of word luck is a shame in the community where I came from and where
2:00.7	also Amina come from.
2:02.3	How was the first woman lawyer to come from Gombi State in Nigeria.
	...

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