The 5 Cyntoia Browns who won clemency thanks to people’s unending activism

Amina Lawal

This Nigerian woman was sentenced to death by stoning in a Nigerian Islamic court in 2002. Her crime: committing adultery and giving birth to a child out of wedlock. Lawal, who was divorced, had admitted to having had a relationship with a man she identified as the father of the child. The man denied the charge and swore on the Koran. He was, thus, deemed innocent by the trial court. For lack of evidence, he was not prosecuted; and in the midst of all this, no one thought of DNA tests. The Islamic Sharia court on March 22, 2002, ordered Lawal to be executed, only to be saved after an Appellate Court overturned the sentence. Her case became an international one that highlighted the plight of women in Nigeria’s northern Muslim states and the Sharia law.