Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow

The stoning of Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was a public execution carried out by the Al-Shabaab militant group on 27 October 2008 in the southern port town of Kismayo, Somalia. Duhulow's father and aunt stated that she was a 13-year-old girl and that she had been arrested and stoned to death after trying to report that she had been raped. Initial reports had stated that Duhulow was a 13-year-old girl found guilty of adultery; she was, however, under the age of marriage eligibility. The execution took place in a public stadium attended by about 1,000 bystanders, several of whom attempted to intervene but were shot by the militants.

According to Amnesty International, Al-Shabaab had formally charged Duhulow with adultery.

Background In 1991, the government of then President of Somalia Siad Barre was overthrown by a coalition of armed factions. The Islamic Courts Union (ICU) took control of the southern half of Somalia in 2006, imposing Shari'a law. In 2006, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) assisted by Ethiopian troops re-captured the capital Mogadishu, largely driving the ICU's leaders out of the country. Al-Shabaab, the youth branch of the ICU's militias, subsequently stayed behind to take up guerrilla warfare against the TFG and the Ethiopian military. Several thousand local civilians were killed by the militants during the height of the insurgency between December 2006 and October 2008. In the months leading up to Duhulow's execution, Al-Shabaab had been gaining strength, as it had seized control of the Port of Kismayo, essentially shut down Mogadishu's Aden Adde International Airport, and dismantled pro-government roadblocks. According to one of her teachers, Muno Mohamed Osman, who had taught Duhulow for a few months and did not remember her well, she struggled during class and "didn't look mentally fit[...] She was always in trouble with students, teachers[...] She was just a child." Three months after her arrival in Kismayo, Duhulow was reportedly raped by three armed men while travelling on foot to visit her grandmother in Mogadishu in October 2008. No attempts were made by the insurgent group to apprehend Duhulow's purported attackers. She reportedly struggled with the insurgents and at one point screamed, "What do you want from me[...] I'm not going, I'm not going. Don't kill me." According to witnesses, nurses were then instructed to verify whether Duhulow was still alive.

CBC journalist Debi Goodwin wrote, "To the world, Aisha became a symbol of the dangers of extremism." On 27 October 2010, a "2nd Annual Memorial Lecture" was held by the Newcastle Amnesty Group to commemorate the second anniversary of Duhulow's death. That same year, Associate Professor Susanne Scholtz dedicated her book, Sacred Witness: Rape in the Hebrew Bible (2010), to her great-aunt, the rape victims in the Congo, and Duhulow, saying, "I honor Aisha and what she had to endure in her young life."

Responses

Al-Shabaab The Al-Shabaab militia prohibited journalists from taking pictures of the stoning, but allowed them to document the event. A few days later, Amnesty International reported that Duhulow's father had told them that she was only 13, under the age of marriage eligibility, and that she was arrested and executed after trying to report that she had been raped. UNICEF also cited the incident as an example of the vulnerability that females in the conflict-stricken parts of Somalia were at the time faced with. Radhika Coomaraswamy, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, said, "The incident highlights the extreme nature of violence against children and women in Somalia which has been heightened by the increasing lawlessness. It is the duty of the international community and the local authorities to stop these violations and to ensure better protection for children. No efforts should be spared." The Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women released a statement urging people to "write a letter to the representatives of Somalia, the African Union, and various UN human rights offices to encourage them to take action by investigating this murder, bringing the perpetrators to justice, and denouncing the actions of these insurgents".

Local reactions Mohamed Abdullahi, director of the Somali Community Initiative in the United Kingdom, said that many Somali immigrants in the UK had been sympathetic to Al-Shabaab in the previous years and had sent funds to it. He further said, "Over here in Britain, they are not seeing the violence that they are fuelling, or realising that al-Shabaab has some very hardline policies. Many people here were shocked to hear about the stoning incident, and said that it was not Islamic. In that case, they should think twice about sending money." It was described as "inhumane, barbarous" by Moroccan Organization for Human Rights President Amina Bouayache and as "an act of terrorism towards the Somali people, particularly women" by women's rights activist Hind Mbarki.

The stoning was equally condemned in Tunisia and Algeria, where head of the Mounia Association for the Protection of Single Women Zakia Gawaou described the situation as unacceptable. Muslim scholar Houssine Mohamed stated, "Adultery, in Aisha's case, was not voluntary. She was a victim of rape, as is the case of many young girls and women in Algeria who are raped by extremists. Therefore, sentencing her to death cannot be related to Islam." Khadija Cherif, President of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, said, "We condemn violence against women for whatever reason or purpose, especially violence that denies human beings of their right to live." Sofiene Ben Hmida, a member of the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, remarked, "This is an act committed by people who are living outside history. The danger doesn't lie with those people, but with those who just watch what they do without confronting them strongly and firmly." Iqbal Gharbi, professor of Sharia and Religious Principles at Zeitouna University, called the incident an "act of barbarism worthy of denunciation".