“I told my daughters to fight back if their husbands slap them” – Emir Sanusi

• The monarch addressed the National Dialogue Conference on Gender-Based Violence, promoting Islamic teachings and community collaboration for ending GBV, with support from the Ford Foundation.

The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, stated yesterday that he advised his daughters to ensure they respond appropriately if they are subjected to physical aggression by their husbands.

This declaration was made during the National Dialogue Conference on the prevention of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) from an Islamic perspective, which was themed: ‘Islamic teachings and community collaboration for ending Gender-Based Violence.’ The event was organized by the Centre for Islamic Civilisation and Interfaith Dialogue (CICID) at Bayero University Kano (BUK), in partnership with the Development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC), with support from the Ford Foundation.

He highlighted that 45 percent of cases reported over five years across nine Shari’a Courts in Kano were associated with domestic violence and wife beating.

According to him, “You can take that verse and say that as a husband, I’ve been given this permission to beat my wife light. And nobody will deny that, nobody will say it is haram if you comply with all the rules. But if you live in a society in which those rules are never applied, nobody who is angry remembers to look for a chewing stick or a handkerchief.

“They just slap these women and punch them and kick them and beat them. I just wrote a doctorate thesis on family law, and I did research on nine courts, nine Shari’a courts in Kano. About 51 percent of the cases over a five-year period had to do with maintenance. While 26 percent had to do with harm. And out of those, 45 percent were cases of wife beating, domestic violence, and when we go to the content analysis, not one case of wife beating was light beating.“We had women whose limbs were broken. We had women whose teeth were knocked out. We had women who were victims of constant beating with sticks. We had women where the husband and his other wives beat one of the wives. We’ve had cases of Khadis having to send her sons to trial for criminal assault because of the nature of the beating against their wives. This is the common beating that happens.

“Beating your wife or beating your daughter or beating a woman is prohibited. It is a crime. Let’s not even talk about handkerchief or chewing stick. It is just haram. It is prohibited. Allah says, all haram must be removed. And beating, gender-based violence is harm. And it must be removed.