Stephen VasciannieAMINA LAWAL Kurami is a 31-year-old woman with an eight-month-old child. Last week, she was sentenced to death by stoning by an Appeals Court in Northern Nigeria applying the Islamic sharia code. A Reuters report indicates that when the sentence of death was confirmed by the Appeals Court, there were chants of Allahu Akbar (God is Greater) from the mainly male audience in the court.
Amina Lawal Ku-rami's crime? She is reported to have had a child outside marriage; Miss Kurami, a divorcee, is also said to have admitted to adultery during her lower court trial. So then, according to the constituted authority in Northern Nigeria, applying the laws of Northern Nigeria, if a woman commits adultery and has a child out of wedlock, she is to be stoned to death.
At the same time, in some parts of Africa, particularly areas north of the equator, female circumcision, administered to girls in the age range from one week to 14 years, is still prevalent. According to the World Health Organisation, there are three main forms of female circumcision. First, there is circumcision proper, also known as sunna (meaning "traditional") in some Muslim countries. In this, the mildest form of circumcision, the clitoral prepuce is removed. Secondly, there is excision, which involves the amputation of the entire clitoris and a part, or all, of the labia minora.
The third form of circumcision is known as infibulation or Pharaonic circumcision: it involves the amputation of the clitoris, the entire labia minora, and a much, if not all, of the medial part of the labia majora. "The two sides of the vulva are then stitched together with silk, catgut or thorns, and a tiny sliver of wood or a reed is inserted to preserve an opening for urine and menstrual blood. The girl's legs are usually bound together from ankle to knee until the wound has healed, which may take anything up to 40 days" (World Health Organisation Chronicle, Issue 40 (1986), page 31).
Female circumcision is justified as part of the traditional practice of some societies; and stoning to death for adultery is rationalised as being sanctioned by the law and religion. Are these forms of justification sufficient to allow us to look the other way when confronted with clear acts of brutality against women? Or should we join the Western countries that are openly critical of social and religious practices that violate our norms of civilised behaviour?
UNIVERSALITY
Ultimately, these questions take us into the territory of the long-standing debate about the universal applicability of human rights standards. In this debate, protagonists on one side, the universalists, maintain that certain core standards of human rights should be legally and morally available to all human beings.
This view starts from the perspective that human rights must seek to affirm human dignity, and that minimum standards of human dignity should be preserved in all societies. Thus, even if the traditional or cultural norms of a particular society clearly support stoning for adultery, or female circumcision, the universalist would argue that these practices clearly violate human dignity, and should be abolished.
To support their position, the universalists can point with some confidence to various international instruments concerning human rights. To begin with, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948), a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly which is now widely accepted as reflecting customary law in several areas, assumes the universalist position in its very title.
Moreover, the particular rights contemplated in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and in treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) make no allowance for cultural or regional exceptions. So, for instance, when the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights prohibits torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, it clearly indicates that "no one" should be subjected to such forms of abuse. And similarly, when this treaty affirms the security of the person, it expressly states that this right is available to "everyone" not to "everyone except those living in particular societies".
On the other side of the debate, in contrast to the universalists, are the cultural relativists. In essence, cultural relativists emphasise the diversity of the international community, and argue that human rights standards ought not to be universally applicable because this would amount to the imposition of Western, liberal values upon all communities. For the cultural relativist, human rights standards must be applied with reference to prevailing social and cultural standards in individual countries, and must show deference to regional particularities.
Cultural relativists also tend to attach considerable significance to State autonomy. Thus, the cultural relativist can be expected to argue that questions concerning human rights protection are primarily, if not exclusively, matters for the State, and that attempts by international organisations or by other countries to challenge human rights practices in a particular State are contrary to national self-determination, and reflect an inadequate understanding of the domestic conditions within the particular State.
LIMITS
In theory, both the universalists and the cultural relativists raise important points of contention; and, bearing particularly in mind the realities of colonialism and the tendency of some countries to abuse positions of dominance under the guise of human rights protection, I am inclined to sympathise with the relativist position.
Nevertheless, there must be limits to the kind of treatment that the State allows within its territory. And, for this reason, I believe that some standards must be universally applied. It cannot be right for other countries to sit idly by while Northern Nigerian religious fanatics impose the death sentence on Amina Lawal Kurami. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Nigeria is a party, allows the death penalty only for "the most serious crimes", and even accepting that this phrase has a penumbra of subjectivity, it is difficult to regard adultery as a most serious crime. This is pure discrimination against a woman who may have made a mistake.
By the same token, having regard to the brutality inherent in female circumcision, pressure must continue to be placed upon States that allow the practice. It is painful, life-threatening, promotes no identifiable health purpose, and underlines the oppression of women that remains all too entrenched in some societies.
Cultural relativists do their cause a disservice if their arguments can be used to justify the "amputation of the clitoris, the whole of the labia minora, and at least the anterior two-thirds ... of the labia majora." Brutality is brutality wherever in the world you may be.
Stephen Vasciannie is a professor at the University of the West Indies.
