She was convicted of adultery. An international campaign saved her from being stoned to death. Now her face has become an emblem of hope.
The story of Safiya Hussaini Tungar Tudu filled newspapers and countless email inboxes around the world, and set people talking. She was convicted of having a baby outside marriage, even after her third husband repudiated and humiliated her. Reported by her own brother and sentenced to be stoned to death. She was to be buried to her neck in the village square, in Nigeria, with her head sticking out of the ground so that she could scream in terror, in pain, in anger.
Her crime was to fall pregnant and have her daughter. This took place not in the nineteenth century but in our own time - 2000. The whole world rallied around her in a massive campaign and finally Safiya was acquitted. This is her story, which she tells candidly and honestly to Italian journalist Raffaele Masto. Her courtcase, sentence and acquittal make for astonishing reading, but it is equally surprising to read about her arranged marriage as a young girl of 13 and the way her first, second, then her third husbands could dissolve the marriages when the arrangement no longer suited them.
Reading this book you will quickly come to know Safiya, her family and her lifestyle, and admire her for her tenacity and warmth. She is the symbol of the clash between religious fundamentalists and those who practise their religion in a rational way. Her strength shines in her courage to recount her ordeal - in the hope that humanity may prevail over extreme beliefs.
