Hauwa Ibrahim: What Route to Change?
2014
This case explores Nigerian attorney Hauwa Ibrahim’s defense of a woman charged with adultery by Islamic Shariah law. One of Nigeria’s first female lawyers, Ibrahim develops a strategy to defend a young married woman, Amina Lawal, against adultery charges that could potentially, if the court judged against her, result in her death. While many Western non-governmental organizations and advocacy groups viewed Lawal’s case as an instance of human rights abuse and called for an abolition of the Shariah-imposed punishment, Ibrahim instead chose to see an opportunity for change within a system that many – especially cultural outsiders – viewed as oppressive. Ibrahim challenged the dominant paradigm by working within it to create change that would eventually reverberate beyond one woman’s case. Willing to start with a framework that saw long-term opportunity and possibility, Ibrahim developed a very measured change approach and theory framed in seven specific principles. Additionally, Ibrahim’s example of challenging her own internal paradigms while also insisting that others do the same invites students to examine their own internal systems and paradigms.
Hauwa Ibrahim: What Route to Change? - Teaching Case
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Source:
Johnson P, Gordon R. Hauwa Ibrahim: What Route to Change? Global Health Education and Learning Incubator at Harvard University, Connors Center for Women’s Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University 2013. https://repository.gheli.harvard.edu/repository/10695.