![Lawyer Josephine Adhet Deng. [Photo courtesy]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sudanspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/64553784_2104873262971944_8094301340341108736_n.jpg?resize=1014%2C561&quality=89&ssl=1)
Maulana Josephine Adhet Deng told Sudans Post on Thursday that she had separated from Honorable Faustino Atem Gualdit – with whom she has two children – last year after a family dispute that witnessed intervention of other members of their families.
“I separated from him in June 2022 and moved away from the family house. This was due to a long unresolved misunderstanding between ourselves,” she said.
“I raised that issue at the level of the community and family members, but it went unsolvable from my husband’s side. He refused to listen to anyone,” she added.
Adhet said that that Hon. Atem has denied her access to the children and when she got a court summon on the matter, she beat the lawyer at the premise of the Council of States in front of other members of parliament.
“From that time, he took the custody of the children and denied me access, visitation and communication with my children up to date,” she added.
The female lawyer said she was forced in 2002 to marry Hon. Atem who was 42 at the time when she was just 8 years old. She said that she filed for divorce in December 2022 and has since been harassed and attacked by the lawmaker several times.
“In December 2022, I filed for divorce in the Juba Court. But he has since defied court orders including to allow me see the children and when he received a court summon about the children, he attacked me and beat me at the premise of the Council of States and ordered his son who works in the NSS to kill me,” she said.
“So, I am in the process of divorce first and the criminal case it already opened against him and his son. My children are living with a group of 50 strangers. People I don’t know and who are not related to myself and my children. The court must do something,” she added.
South Sudan is one of the many countries were women have difficulties accessing justice. Domestic violence is one of the many problems facing women in the country and many women have been forced to marry at a young age.
The circumstances of beating of a woman in Sudanese cultures is available within the corners of all Sudanese customs and norms, which are respected under international law. But according Children Act, it defines a child to be somebody under 18 years, means here the parents have no rights to marry off their own daughter to an old man of 40 years and above. Beside that, force marriage is not allowed in such way that a lady might have rejected orders from the family but culturally and based on tradition a lady can marry at the age of 16, if for example that girl is not schooling and may be their parents are broke, they can decide to marry off their own daughter through convincing and not enforcing or forced her to marry without her consent. The issue of Counsel Adhet according to me, her marriage was traditional, but the point of being married off at the age of 8 does not make sense if the family might have done that. The brutality in the Council of states premise is wrong and it seems like her husband doesn’t knows nothing about law and whether what he was doing was correct or not. Even within Dinka cultures if you have problem or issue with your wife, you better beat her at home and not in public, reason being Council of states is the public place. Due to the fact that the lady has produced the children, it means the husband has nothing to do with her again, because those two children are enough and the husband to Counsel can’t complain any more if they separated at the level of Family Division Court of Juba. As a Lawyer I advice the husband to accept Court summon and be answerable upon the law.
The commentator is an independent Journalist and associates Lawyer, who is residing outside South Sudan.