Gender, Mobility, and Sharia

Abstract

In present-day Nigeria there are twelve states that have adopted or implemented sharia law. These laws have spawned death sentences for two women accused of adultery. The cases have received international attention, including the boycott of the Miss World contest in Nigeria by pageant contestants upset by the sentences, and the November riots and killings surrounding the pageant's controversy. The Nigerian Federal Government has already intervened to help free the first woman on appeal and to promise to protect the second, and has denied that the pageant was to blame for the riots. However, thousands more northern Nigerian women are affected by sharia laws, which attempt to limit forms of transportation for women and control when and how they will marry.