Visiting Professor to Discuss Sharia Law and Women

Visiting professor Hauwa Ibrahim will discuss "Sharia Law and the Rights of Women."

Ibrahim has an LL.M. in International Studies (Humanitarian Law and Human Development) American University, Washington College of Law, (2004), Certificate of Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, American University, Washington College of Law, (2004), Humphrey Fellow, American University, Washington College of Law (2003-2004), Certificate of Rollin School of Public Health and Institute of International Education of Global Development and Social Justice (2004), Certificate of Humanitarian Law and Human Development, Certificate in American and International law, Academy of American and International law, Center for American and International Law (2000), Master in International Law and Diplomacy (1998), LL.B. (Laws) University of Jos, Nigeria 1987

Ibrahim was a part-time lecturer at the University of Abuja and a senior partner in the Aries Law Firm in Abuja, Nigeria. In her capacity as senior partner she served as defense counsel in over 90 pro bono Sharia related cases, including the case of Amina Lawal and Safiya Hussaini since 1999, when some states in Nigeria adopted the Islamic Sharia in criminal issues. She was responsible for the first draft of the Constitution of the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU), established in September 2002, and served as a consultant to the United Nations Development Program on widowhood practices in Northern Nigeria and their effect on children (1998–2000). She has been a consultant to Lawyers without Borders in Canada and France on legal issues of the implementation of Sharia in Nigeria since 2002. She also has been a consultant to the European Union Ambassadors in Nigeria.

She served as prosecutor and defense counsel for the Ministry of Justice, Bauchi State, Nigeria, (1989–1996), and was the National Publicity Secretary for the Nigerian Bar Association (2000–2002). She has been a Yale World Fellow (2005–2006) and has lectured on topics such as “Sharia and the Rule of Law in Nigeria”, “Race Crime and Politics” and “No to Violence against Women,” for a host of organizations across the world. She was given the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession which, for the first time, was awarded to a non-American woman lawyer, the Eleanor Roosevelt Global Women’s Rights Award from the Feminist Majority Foundation, the Italian Government Human Rights Award and the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

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