Survivor center, Kaduna
Toyin Falola
Cornelius Hamelberg
Many hearty Congratulations to Prof. Hauwa’u Evelyn Yusuf!
What she has accomplished is timely, incredible, impressive, laudable, inspiring, and superlative.
With the scourge of Domestic Violence being such a problem, not only in Nigeria, this wonderful, much-needed enterprise she has embarked on needs all the support that it more than deserves and that it can muster, locally, nationally and internationally.
I can think of no better candidate for the Right Livelihood Award.
Hopefully, this light from Kaduna will spread to other troubled areas in Nigeria and beyond Nigeria, the world over.
In the sociological context of Kaduna - which is the most cosmopolitan state in the predominantly Muslim North, I imagine that coordinating the work of this institute to be in harmonious sync with the demands of Sharia law - Islamic marriage and family law could be quite a challenge and an interesting development - taking into consideration that perhaps domestic violence could be one of the major contributory causes for the very high divorce rates among the Hausa - according to what I learned some 35 years ago when I specialised in the Marriage Laws of Islam, according to the five main Schools of Islamic jurisprudence and took a deeper look into Hausaland ( Maliki) Turkey ( Hanafi - which I found to be most congenial, at the time) and Iran ( Jaʿfarī fiqh)
What does the husband do when his wife takes refuge at this centre specially created for bruised and battered wives? Is he legally entitled to retrieve his wife from such a separation or declaration of independence or can he charge such a wife with insubordination or desertion?
Of course, it's not only Islam that rules the waves in Kaduna - i-e. domestic violence does not only occur among the faithful, and once haram alcohol enters the picture ( more waves) once a man or a woman gets drowned in alcohol, domestic violence is bound to increase, I suppose especially among the Christian laity where consumption of the beverage is encouraged by such lines from Pope, which the literate literalists among some of the holy Christian boys and girls, men and women, even some pastors and parrots are prone to take quite literally - with al-cohol in mind:
“A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.”
Resulting in devastating domestic scenes like this:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=5807009026073237&set=a.110665302374333
Okey Iheduru
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