The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has called for a firm stance against domestic violence, citing the alarming prevalence of wife-beating cases in Kano State.
Speaking at the National Dialogue Conference on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) prevention in Kano recently, Sanusi revealed that 45 percent of cases across nine Shari’a Courts of Kano in five years were related to wife beating and domestic violence.
Explaining his approach to addressing the issue, the Emir said he had instructed his daughters to defend themselves if their husbands physically attacked them. This, he stated, was because he did not raise his daughters to endure violence in their marriages.
The former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor highlighted the disconnect between Islamic injunctions on light discipline and the brutal reality of domestic violence.
He noted that none of the cases he studied in his doctoral research adhered to the prescribed limitations, as the acts often resulted in severe injuries such as broken limbs and knocked-out teeth.
He emphasised that such violence is both a crime and an affront to human dignity, which Islam unequivocally prohibits. Sanusi urged parents to educate their daughters to reject abuse and to instil in their sons the understanding that violence against women is unacceptable.
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He said, “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 handkerchiefs or chewing sticks. It is just haram. It is prohibited. Allah says all haram must be removed. And beating, Gender-based Violence (GBV) is harm. And it must be removed.
“It just does not make sense. Now, I said it before, and I know I’ve been attacked for it, and I’ll continue saying it. When my daughters are getting married, I say to them, if your husband slaps you, and you come home and tell me my husband slapped me without slapping him back first, I will slap you myself because I did not send my daughter to marry somebody so he can slap her. If you do not like her, send her back to me. But don’t beat her.
“And we must teach our daughters not to take it. And also teach our sons that it is not allowed. It is not acceptable. It cannot happen. We have to bring up our children to understand that violence against the body of another human being, whether it’s your brother, or your sister, or your son, or your daughter, or your wife, that violence against persons violates the basic dignity of a human being.”
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