A 19-year-old woman in Sudan was sentenced to death for fatally stabbing her husband for raping her. She was 16 when she was forced to get married. The legal age of marriage in Sudan is 10, and marital rape is legal in the country.
The woman had said her husband’s family had assisted him in raping her, The Guardian reported. The family had rejected financial compensation and the option to pardon her, and asked that she be executed instead, CNN reported.
Her legal team has 15 days to appeal the verdict.
The case has brought attention to child marriage and marital rape in Sudan, and #JusticeforNoura and #SaveNoura were trending on Twitter soon after the verdict was announced. A change.org petition has also got thousands of signatures.
“She’s still in complete shock after her sentencing,” Adil Mohamed Al-Imam, one of the woman’s lawyers, told CNN. Another member of her legal team Muawya Khidir said that she was only defending herself when she killed the man and was mentally and psychologically disturbed as a result of rape, The Guardian reported.
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