Sudanese women hopeful to end gender based violence 

In its issue of today, An Nahar wrote that following the ousting of President Omar al Bashir and the rise of a democratic process in Sudan, Sudanese women are hopeful of a change in laws and mentalities in relation to women rights and the ending of violence against them. The newspaper cited Halima Abdallah (penname) as recounting that she was sentenced 9 years ago to 100 lashes. Losing hope in change in her country, she travelled with the intention to settle abroad. When the April 2019 uprising started, Halima said she regained her lost hope in a civil state and reopened her center for feminist studies after she was forced to close it in 2014. On the subject, the director of the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Unit in Sudan, Suleima Isaac Cherif (44), told AFP that violence against women in her country is systematic with the aim to reduce their participation in the political and social life. “We have laws that coerce or incite violence against women, and always by the spirit of law,” Cherif maintained. The public order act does not stipulate recognized and effective provisos, and is not a clear law, but is subject to the attitude of its executive party, Cherif stated. (An Nahar, November 26, 2019)