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UPDATE: Nigeria: Islamic authorities order cancellation of protest by divorced women

Submitted by wluml on Mon, 01/26/2009 - 00:00
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BBC News
The head of the Sharia police, or Hisbah, said the planned protest was an "embarrassment", and is "un-Islamic". The organisers have agreed to postpone their protest scheduled for 29 January.
Women's rights activists say divorced women are often thrown out of their homes, lose custody of their children, and many end up destitute.
The Director General of the Hisbah, Saidu Dukawa, said there were also security concerns over the protest. "We fear what could happen in the streets if there is a large gathering of people, it could get out of control," he told the BBC's Hausa Service. Large gatherings of people can be volatile in Nigeria, which has been rocked by violence between Muslims and Christians over the last 10 years.

Quarrelling spouses

He also said the idea of street protests was "un-Islamic" and "morally wrong".

"Never in the history of Islam have women taken to the street to press for their demands," he said. The Hisbah were reported by local media to have said they feared the demonstration would "ridicule Kano in the eyes of the world".

Kano is one of 12 northern Muslim-majority states governed by Sharia law. The Hisbah are in charge of policing the morals of Muslims to make sure they are "Sharia-compliant". They do not have the authority to ban the protest from going ahead, but told organisers they would report the demonstration to the police if they continued with it.

One of their duties is to reconcile quarrelling spouses and prevent divorce. But divorce in polygamous northern Nigeria is very common.

19 January 2009

Source: BBC News

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BACKGROUND

12/01/2009: Many divorcees are expected to attend a mass rally in Kano city organised by the National Association of Divorcees, Widows and the Orphans of Nigeria, to protest the growing divorce rate and "insufficient husbands in Kano State." (Daily Trust)

Organisers say the rally where "one million" divorced women would come out to the streets against marriage instability was the biggest in the history of Nigeria. Executive Director of the association, Hajiya Attine Abdullahi, said the rally would hold in a fortnight and is expected to highlight the incidences of divorce and what she called "a growing social problem bedeviling the communities of Kano State."

The executive director, who addressed newsmen shortly after the emergency meeting of the national executive council of the association at the Ministry for Local Govern-ment and Chieftaincy Affairs in Kano, said the decision was necessitated by the inability of the state House of Assembly to initiate laws against the menace. improve the lot of divorcees, but those laws are yet to see the light of day," she lamented.

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