Childhood, Marriage, and Murder in Sudan
GORANI: I want to take you to Sudan next of a story that set off a global outcry. Noura Hussein was just 15 when she was forced into marriage with a much, much older man. Now the Sudanese teenager is on death row for killing that man who she says raped her. But as Nima Elbagir discovered she is far from the only such case in Sudan. Take a look.</s>NOURA HUSSEIN, RE-ENACTMENT: I had no idea how I got there. I was still carrying the knife. He told my parents that he wanted to marry me. The first time I even saw him was a week after he proposed the marriage to my uncle. I told them I don't want to marry. I want to study. I was in the eighth grade. And they fooled me.</s>NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are the words of a Sudanese teenager Noura Hussein. For her safety, this is not her voice, but it is Noura's story in her own words.</s>HUSSEIN: They did all the usual rituals for the wedding I was overwhelmed with anger. I didn't want this man. I sat in the hairdressers contemplating suicide.</s>ELBAGIR: This is Noura on her wedding day. Noura is on death row, convicted of the murder of her 35-year-old husband. Noura's case has caused controversy across Sudan. A controversy Sudan's government has refused to comment on. Noura's husband's family have, we're told by activists, threatened violence against her supporters. They also refused CNN's request for comment. The badly kept secret here is that more than a third of marriages in Sudan are child marriages, a number that is rising. Aggravated by the financial realities in Sudan and a law that set it is legal age of marriage at ten. But some brave little girls are choosing to speak out. (on camera) (through translator text): Are you ready? How old are you?</s>AMAL, 11-YEAR-OLD SEEKING DIVORCE: Eleven.</s>ELBAGIR: This is Amal's story and Amal's own voice. For her safety, we're not showing her face. Amal is seeking a divorce from her abusive husband.</s>AMAL: he treated me horribly, I went to my father, but he sent me back to him. Then when he beat me again, I fled to my father, but he sent me back again. That last time he beat me, I went to the police station.</s>ELBAGIR: When it's all over, Amal wants to be a doctor. Beside her, her father wipes away tears. And like Noura, Amal's father is here in support of her.</s>AMAL'S FATHER: Twice, she came to my home, twice and was terrified and frightened. I sent her back.</s>ELBAGIR (on camera): The man is 38 years old and wanted to be married to an 11-year-old girl. Shouldn't you have been suspicious?</s>AMAL'S FATHER: Well, I'm regretful, regretful.</s>ELBAGIR (voice-over): Her father promises only to think harder the next time a proposal for marriage comes to his underage daughter. Nahed Jabrallah's office walls are adorned with art from rescued child victims. Her center SEEMA is one of the organizations fighting on Noura's behalf. It works to combat violence against women and forced marriage is spite of a regular diet of threats.</s>ELBAGIR (on camera): Aren't you afraid when you talk about these cases?</s>NAHED JABRALLAH, SEEMA CENTER DIRECTOR (through translator): I think that we, at the SEEMA center and other organizations, do this as a conscious choice. Noura is just one of the 37 percent of girls married in Sudan under the age of 18, just one of the cases that has reached us. There are so many others that are similar, even down to the details.</s>NOURA HUSSEIN, RE-ENACTMENT: We arrived at the honeymoon flat. I locked myself inside one of the rooms. I refused to eat. I refused to leave my room. On the ninth day, his relatives came. His uncle told me to go to the bedroom. I said no, so he dragged me by my arm into the bedroom. All of them tore at my clothing. His uncle held me down by my legs and each of the other two held down my arm. He stripped and had me while I wept and screamed. I was bleeding. I slept naked.</s>ELBAGIR (voice-over): A familiar childhood ritual, part and parcel of growing up. Women and girls across Sudan are fighting for the right to a childhood against laws that legalize child marriage, laws that don't recognize marital rape, laws that empower their abusers. Noura still had the knife in her hands when she fled to her parents' home. It was her own father who handed her to the police. And it's there that she learned that she had killed her husband. She's now awaiting the results of her appeal.</s>GORANI: And Nima is in the studio here with me. What happens now to Noura? Her lawyers have appealed.</s>ELBAGIR: We are still awaiting the results of the appeal. And we understand that pressure is being exerted on her deceased husband's family. Who unbelievably in this case, of course, is considered the victim to move on from their right and their claim that she be executed. But of course, that doesn't solve the bigger problem. The hole in the center of Sudan's justice system which allowed this to happen in the first place.</s>GORANI: Yes. And is there the beginning -- obviously, I have never been to Sudan. I wonder what is public opinion? Where does it fall on this child marriage issue?</s>ELBAGIR: Well, what is been really extraordinary is that I think for a lot of the women in the urban centers, this came as a huge shock to them. But what has grown from that is that women, in spite of the government's pressure on them are speaking out. It is Sudanese women that are the reason that we even know about Noura's case in the first place. Honestly, I met some extraordinarily brave women out there fighting on behalf of Noura and other girls like her.</s>GORANI: And is the country ready for change?</s>ELBAGIR: It feels like Sudanese women are going to drag the country there whether we're ready or not.</s>GORANI: Yes, kicking and screaming maybe.</s>ELBAGIR: Kicking and screaming.</s>GORANI: Is it the same way in Sudan as it is in other parts of the Muslim world or, frankly, of not necessarily the Muslim world, parts of the developing world where you have a huge, huge divide between the urban areas and the maybe more rural parts of the country.</s>ELBAGIR: It feels like as the economic situation continues to fall apart, that that is definitely what's happening. It's this chasm opening up. And that's what's fueling so much of this child marriage problem.</s>GORANI: Nima Elbagir, thanks very much for joining us there with this incredible report. And we'll be airing it throughout the day as well on my show a little bit later this evening. Thanks so much. Now, some 40,000 girls are forced into marriage every day worldwide. Some as young as eight or nine years old. And here are the countries where it is most common, 76 percent in Niger, 34 percent of girls married by the time they are 18 and Sudan. Bangladesh is the only non-African country in that list. And you can see more of Nima's reporting and read Noura's account of what happened to her, on CNN.com. It's part of our #AsEquals project. Which puts the spotlight on inequality and the fight against it around the world. We'll have a lot more after this. Stay with CNN.