HRC61: Oral Statement during Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on FoRB

Item 3: Interactive Dialogue on the report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of religion or belief

Speaker:Claire Denman

Thank you, Mr President,

CSW thanks the Special Rapporteur for her report.

We respectfully highlight to the government of Nigeria the rapporteur’s assertion that in the absence of stated funeral preferences by the deceased, the rights holders of funeral rights are their next of kin and family, and then their ‘community of practice.’

In the case of 13-year-old David Solomon Tarfa, there is a risk of these rights not being respected. David died on 28 January in a state-run orphanage in Kano after authorities failed to provide him with urgently needed medical attention.

On 3 February the Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs, Children and Disabled, and the Attorney General of Kano, reportedly filed, but subsequently withdrew, a suit at the Juvenile Court seeking an order directing the orphanage to release his body after a post-mortem for burial in accordance with Islamic rites. He remains unburied a month after his death.

The authorities claim that David converted to Islam; however, he was a minor, who had been held in a coercive environment, separated from his adoptive parents, Professor Solomon Musa Tarfa and his wife Mercy for close to seven years.

The authorities’ actions compound the trauma of a grieving family that has suffered years of injustice: initially 27 children were transported from the Tarfas’ children’s homes under false pretences in 2019 to the state-run orphanage where the UN Working Group concluded they were detained arbitrarily. Repeated deferrals of legal proceedings are preventing the return of the remaining children.

CSW urges Nigeria’s federal authorities to intervene to ensure David is laid to rest by his family soon and at a time and place of their choosing.

We also appeal for the immediate and unconditional release of the seven remaining children into the care of the Tarfas in accordance with a consent judgement issued in 2025 by the Kano State High Court which local authorities continue to ignore.

Thank you