“I cannot be covering my body with black cloth,” Nigerian woman ends marriage over Purdah

A woman in Ilorin told a court to dissolve her two year marriage because she refused to stay in purdah, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

The purdah practice requires married Muslim women to stay in separate rooms, behind a curtain or dress in all-enveloping clothes, in other to say out of the sight of men or strangers.

But Azanat Bashiru told the court that Mumin Bashiru, her husband of two years and father of their two children, did not tell her before they got married in 2014 that she would be put in purdah.

“This is not in our agreement. I cannot be covering my body with black cloth, including my eyes, all of the time,’’ she said. Mumin did not raise any objection. “If she doesn’t agree to be in purdah, she is free to go,’’ he said. But he demanded custody of their two children.