"Stone Her to Death? Why? Defending Women within Sharia Courts"
Hauwa Ibrahim, 2008–2009 Rita E. Hauser Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute, Aries Law Firm, Nigeria4 p.m., Radcliffe Gymnasium, 10 Garden Street, Radcliffe Yard, 617-495-8600
Experience the complete proceedings on-line: streaming video of the lecture is now available.
Video (1:29 minutes)
This event is free and open to the public.
One of the arguments that contributed to the acquittal of Amina Lawal—a Nigerian woman sentenced to death by stoning for being pregnant outside of wedlock—was the “sleeping embryo” theory: according to the Muslim hadith followed in Nigeria, an embryo can be in gestation for up to five years.
In this lecture, Hauwa Ibrahim, who defended Lawal in the legal case, will explore the challenges of defending women in Islamic courts by working from within the principles upon which these courts were founded.
The Rama S. Mehta Lecture at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study was established by the late professor John Kenneth Galbraith and the late Catherine Atwater Galbraith in memory of Rama S. Mehta, who died in 1978. The purpose of this lecture is to invite to Radcliffe and Harvard a distinguished woman in public affairs, the sciences, or the arts.
