Governments and religions around the world remain intensely interested in what women, but not so much what men, are wearing in public. On September 6, 2009 I wrote about the proposed parliamentary ban on the public wearing of the niqab in France. On September 8, media outlets lit up with discussions of the recent trial and subsequent jailing of Lubna Hussein, a Sudanese journalist and United Nations employee, for the crime of wearing trousers. Ms. Hussein was caught in a raid on a café by Sudan’s public order police, a raid that resulted in the arrest of 13 women and the fining and flogging of 10 of them within the next two days. Ms. Hussein and the remaining two chose to go to trial, and the final verdict for Ms. Hussein–guilty–was handed down on September 7. Bec Hamilton argued in Foreign Policy that this case has had a significant impact in Sudan, noting that “the Sudanese woman found guilty of the crime of trousers…may not have won her case, but she has done one important thing: made the Khartoum regime fear the world’s response.” In Ms. Hussein’s trial we see evidence of the power of a woman’s outfit to stimulate international scrutiny upon an already beleaguered and much criticized government, and to motivate at least moderate concessions by Sudan’s legal system.
Thinking about the possible connections between Ms. Hussein’s case and the issue of banning the public wearing of niqabs in France, one has to wonder—what is so important about what women are wearing that it can cause such political outcries around the world, even resulting in some cases in floggings and imprisonment? Why would governments prohibit specific articles of clothing for women only, and why would they go so far as to physically beat women who do not conform to the prohibition?
Lubna Hussein’s case, similar to the situation in France, illustrates a difficult interaction between national law, a certain set of Islamic ideas regarding what women should, or must, wear, and what women themselves choose to wear in public. In Ms. Hussein’s case, she and the 12 other women arrested at the same time were found to violate Sudan’s national “indecency” law that forbids women to wear trousers in public. The Boston Globe describes the law forbidding “indecent clothing”, the violation of which is punishable by 40 lashes and a “potentially unlimited fine”, as vague, a commonality between many indecency laws. The Globe also quotes Ms. Hussein as stating that tens of thousands of women have been flogged under this law, an absurd instance of human rights abuse at the hands of a government. Rather than accept the terms of the law, Ms. Hussein has—by some measures successfully—challenged it.
Lubna Hussein has turned her individual case into an international fight against this law and the control and abuse of women that it facilitates. The Huffington Post ran a story on August 4, 2009 describing how Ms. Hussein had invited diplomats, journalists, and activists to her trial, and how dozens of women–including women wearing trousers–protested outside her trial on this day. Sudanese police chose to reward the protestors for their efforts with tear gas and beatings. Lubna Hussein’s case represents a departure, however, having made police and government abuse a rallying cry; the Huffington Post quotes Ms. Hussein as stating she would take 40,o00 lashes if this is what is needed for the abolition of the law. In the end, the court found her guilty of violating the “indecency” law, but chose not to sentence her to flogging, fining her instead. Ms. Hussein continued to protest the law by refusing to pay the fine and instructing her friends and relatives not to pay it on her behalf. Bec Hamilton reports that Ms. Hussein was forcibly freed after a journalist with ties to the Khartoum regime paid the fine. Although she was quickly released from jail due to the unwanted “help” of this journalist, Ms. Hussein has made her point, and has succeeded in having her protest communicated to the international community.
Will this case provide the momentum on the ground required to result in a repeal of the law? It certainly represents a powerful synergy between local action and international support. Bec Hamilton, who for years has worked in Sudan and has a forthcoming book on citizen advocacy there, characterizes the court’s decision not to sentence Ms. Hussein to flogging as “a nod to the sensitivities to the global media watching from outside the courtroom” and further predicts that the strength of the women’s movement in Sudan evident in observing this case will only grow with time. What relation does such a case bear to other cases around the world concerned with controlling what women wear? There were vocal and visible protests regarding France’s 2004 ban on the hijab in public schools, but the ban remains, and additional bans are proposed. Are the situations similar, in that the government is requiring women to refrain from wearing garments in public—in the Sudan trousers, in France the hijab? Or are they different, because the motivations behind the rules are dissimilar, and because there is a difference in the degree to which the settings are public—e.g. a child’s classroom is relatively private when compared to public streets?
Which brings us back to the original question—why is what a woman wears in a public space so important that governments and religions want to have control over it? Attempting to find the answer to this question will no doubt help orient us as to the extent to which and manner in which the control, and/or punishment for transgressions of the laws that control, constitute violations of the wearer’s human rights.
