NORGLOBAL-Norge - Global partner

Despite increasing international attention to sexual violence in armed conflict, rape is used on a large scale in most wars primarily against women. Rape has become a common weapon of war in Sudan affecting women of diverse ethnic and religious background s, particularly in Darfur. Acts of rape pose particular challenges to human rights accountability in countries ruled by Islamic law (Sharia). According to the Islamic penal law in Sudan the punishment for unlawful sexual intercourse is 100 lashes if the o ffender is not married (fornication) and stoning to death if the offender is married (adultery). Zina (adultery) is not differentiated from rape in the existing legislation. The law on Zina is thus a legal obstacle for rape victims in the northern part of the country, because if rape is not established by the courts the victim can face the death penalty. The excessive use of rape as a tool of war in Sudan makes this study particularly important. The project seeks to explore the intersections between gende r, violence and legal orders within the context of a post-war northern Sudan. The questions which this project seeks to answer are: How and why do changes in the operation of the formal legal system reflect shifting gender relations of power and interpret ations of Islamic law in a post-colonial and emergent post-conflict society? And how do informal and local mechanisms of justice reflect, inform, accommodate, resist, and reject shifting gender relations of power and the interpretations of Islamic law in northern Sudan? The project aims to map out both formal and informal legal mechanisms dealing with cases of rape/Zina as well as Sudanese women?s bargaining strategies in and outside of the courts to change these mechanisms. The project findings will cont ribute to the scant research on rape/Zina issues in Sudan and provide groundbreaking and necessary background information to Sudanese and international women?s activists.