Azima Shukoor commends police for finding concubine

Former Attorney General Azima Shukoor has commended the police for locating the underage concubine yesterday and urged media to protect her identity.

Local media reported yesterday that police raided a house in Male’ and placed the pregnant 17-year-old girl under their protection.

“I believe the society has to give her the protection as she is under 18 years of age,” she said Azima, speaking to press today. “I am saying this because I’ve seen her address revealed in the news media.”

She added revealing the girl’s identity would compromise her future and make others in similar circumstances reluctant to come forward.

Yesterday, daily newspapers reported that unnamed sources had confirmed that the girl was found based on records from Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH).

Azima said she gave information to the police and HRCM for their investigations, adding she believed police had acted very professionally.

In September, President Mohamed Nasheed asked the relevant authorities to investigate reports of an underage concubine being kept for sex by religious extremists in the Maldives.

The report first hit the headlines when at a DRP rally Azima spoke about an article she had read on blogger Hilath Rasheed’s website about a young girl who had been taken to IGMH.

The doctor treating the girl suspected she had been sexually abused. After questioning her guardian, the doctor was told the girl was a jaariya or concubine.

Since then the police and the HRCM have carried out investigations to locate the girl.

For their investigation HRCM visited IGMH and requested details of underage girls who had taken pregnancy tests at around the time the concubine was reported to have attended the hospital.

It was further reported yesterday that the girl was the sister of a man sentenced to jail for clashing with police at Alif Alif Himandhoo during a crackdown on an independent prayer group on the island.

Both police and the HRCM said today their investigations into the reports of underage concubines are still ongoing.

A police media official said he could not confirm the raid yesterday or whether the girl was in custody.

Aishath Afreen Mohamed, complaints officer at the HRCM, said the commission has asked police about the media reports.

Azima said underaged girls who were abused often believed that they had committed a sin.

“Counsellors have to talk to them for a long time before they believe they haven’t done anything wrong,” she said, adding the victims were worried about being ostracised.

Azima said the issue should not be politicised and it was unfortunate that the Islamic ministry had said the reports of concubines were rumours spread to bring Islam into disrepute.

“I spoke about this because it was an inhumane and illegal act that someone has committed,” she said.

At a press conference in October, Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed, state minister for Islamic affairs, was critical of the HRCM for asserting religious extremists were keeping underage concubines without solid evidence.

Shaheeem said he did not believe the reports were true.

Azima said today the investigations would have progressed satisfactorily and without too much media attention if the Islamic ministry had not made such statements.

She added politics and child abuse should not be mixed.

Azima said she was working on other disturbing cases of child abuse.

The former attorney general said she was in the process of registering an NGO with former MP Aneesa Ahmed to target sexual violence against women and girls.

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