MALE: A Maldives court has sentenced a 15-year-old alleged rape victim to 100 lashes and eight months under house arrest after she admitted having had premarital sex in a separate incident, Zaima Nasheed a spokesperson for the juvenile court, said yesterday.
She defended the punishment, saying the girl had willingly committed an act outside of the law.
During a police probe into allegations that the girl had been raped by her stepfather, investigators uncovered evidence that she had consensual sex with another man.
“Though she has been sentenced, she will be lashed once she turns 18,” the court official, who asked not to be named, said.
“But the sentence will be enforced immediately if she wants it to be carried out now,” he added.
The child’s stepfather faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of rape and a murder charge, after he allegedly killed a baby which resulted from his rape of his step-daughter.
The case was sent for prosecution after police were called to investigate a dead baby buried on the island of Feydhoo in Shaviyani Atoll.
The premarital sex charge against the teenager has been condemned by rights groups and the government has urged leniency towards the girl, saying she had been traumatised by the repeated rapes by her stepfather.
Ahmed Faiz, a researcher with Amnesty International, said flogging was “cruel, degrading and inhumane” and urged the authorities to abolish it.
President Mohamed Waheed’s spokesman Masood Imad said in January that the girl should be treated as a victim.
In September a court ordered the public flogging of a 16-year-old who confessed to premarital sex. Her lover was jailed for 10 years.
AFP
