A video that has gone viral on social networks and other news sites in recent days shows a public punishment session for a woman accused of adultery in the village of Guédé Bousso, a town on the outskirts of Touba. A punishment of one hundred lashes was meted to her, in front of the cameras and people invited as witnesses to make an example. The first question that would come to mind is whether the woman committed adultery alone? Of course not! What happened to her partner? The woman, alone, was thrown into the pasture, publicly humiliated and abused. Her partner of the opposite sex is spared, no doubt protected by those judges who are all men. One certain discrimination! The other moral problem is whether the executioner or executioners themselves can raise their hands to say they have never sinned because in this world, everyone has their small or big sins on occasion. But that is not the point. It turns out that no one can say that they have not watched this video but everyone seems to look away, to act as if the fact does not concern them, does not affect them. Yet yes…

The State Cannot Do Ostrich Politics

First and foremost, the state authorities cannot ignore such a human rights situation. This cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment is the antithesis of the rule of law in our country. More seriously, by allowing this form of private justice to settle and prosper in parallel, the State is stripping itself of one of its main sovereign missions. The act of flogging adulterous people in Guédé village would not be the first and the media had relayed a similar act in the village of Thienaba in November 2020. The same practices are also mentioned in other counties such as in the village of Maîmounatou (Sagatta) and Medina Gounass in the Kolda region. We would like an Islamic law, the sharia, to be applied, but the only cases of the application of this sharia are related to matters of sexuality. One would wonder if these Mullahsare only concerned with questions of sexuality? The urgency for the republican authorities to intervene to put an end to such practices is all the more important as the risk is so great that other scales of penalties enacted by this sharia could one day be applied in these localities.

What will we say if tomorrow a thief has one or both hands amputated? Or that stoning to death or public hanging are applied to punish any crime? Under what condition is this form of justice exercised? Certainly, the passivity of the state has made the nest of the proliferation of religious militias that have ended up turning into religious police to arrest and bastions even people found smoking a cigarette! Women presumed to be sex workers, found in private places, were molested and some of their tormentors punished them by taking advantage of their prey to satisfy their libido. Other women who are poorly dressed for their liking have had their hairstyles or false eyelashes ripped off. What about these shirtless guys with all their masculinity offered to the eyes of women and who pass for being devoted and faithful? It is a certain form of gender injustice that we see women shot in the head or disembowelled by their husbands for daring to file for divorce. These femicides go almost unnoticed while indignation, disapproval and condemnations are systematic and general, whenever a man has had the misfortune to be scalded or even beaten by his wife.

The public authorities are walking on eggshells and pushing  » Pontius Pilatism » to the point of prohibiting the intervention of the forces of public order in localities. We have seen religious militias arrest (we do not know under what circumstances and conditions) people and bring them, in a rare moment of leniency, before the state police who thus take over. What form of cooperation could be envisaged between a religious police force and a republican police force of a democratic state when they do not share the same rules of positive law? President Abdou Diouf was able to convince the Khalif General of the Mourides, Serigne Abdoul Ahad Mbacké (1968-1989), to install the state police force in the city of Touba, which had the tendency to become a den of thugs, bandits of all kinds and drug traffickers. For example, when canine units were deployed in the city, the excitement was such that the caliph was able to establish authority and accept the presence of sniffer dogs throughout the city with a formula that has stayed in our memory: « These dogs only track their fellows! »

Getting Killed for Filing for Divorce, Being Flogged for Fornicating

Senegal has the particularity of having many human rights activists who report only alleged abuses attributable to the public authorities. In this register, their favourite subject is electoral issues. Thus, none of our famous major humanist organisations are concerned by the latest high-profile public flogging of Guédé Bousso. It is also difficult to find a statement condemning or moving the latest cases of crimes against women who could no longer stay in their household and who wished to leave. Women’s rights organisations have become even more discreet or speechless, since they had shown a cowardice that will stick to them forever in the case between Adji Sarr and the leader of Pastef Ousmane Sonko.

The horror series is endless. In the space of a few days, Nafissatou Diedhiou was killed by her husband in Grand Yoff(Dakar), Fatou Samb was kidnapped, sequestered, raped in Kaolack, S. Barro was shot in the head in Matam by her husband who refused her divorce, Aminata Touré was killed in Saré Mbemba Touré (Kolda). Dieynaba Sané was disemboweled in Bounkiling (Sédhiou) by her husband who refused her divorce. The saddest thing is that we forget about them or that many cases of this kind are not reported, camouflaged, hidden by families. The proof is that these poor victims were right to seek to leave their husbands who showed their true nature as executioners by taking their lives. They were agonising in their household, dying and faced deaths precipitated by their petition for divorce. Their torment turns out to be a certain form of squaring the circle because the few women who escape their husband’s grip will be publicly flogged if they venture to rebuild a life. On the other hand, men will be able to happily continue as everything is permissible. If adultery were to be punished with a hundred lashes, many would suffer thousands of blows. The way Senegal treats its women gives the impression that the promotion of humanist values and the fight for the preservation of the dignity of all are lost. Our colleague, Mame Woury Thioub, could not hold back a rant in the October 21, 2022 edition of Le Quotidien when she wrote: “are they insensitive, apathetic or simply indifferent to the plight of women in this country? The silence of the cathedral that the authorities of this country have demonstrated since the series of murders of women took place raises questions.”

A country cannot say that it is fair to everyone if half of its citizens are the first victim without protection. Powerful men, strongly presumed sexual aggressors, walk around bulging their chests because in the end all of society is complicit!

By Madiambal DIAGNE / mdiagne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH / Serigne S. DIAGNE