Tag: Department of Judicial Administration

Juvenile Court denies fornication charges filed against 15 year-old girl

Judicial authorities have denied that a 15 year-old child abuse victim is facing charges of fornication at the Juvenile Court, despite media reports to the contrary.

Local newspaper Haveeru reported yesterday (January 6) that the Prosecutor General’s (PG’s) Office pressed charges of fornication against a female minor from Shaviyani Atoll Feydhoo at the Juvenile Court following the conclusion of a police investigation.

Director of the Department of Judicial Administration Ahmed Maajid however told Minivan News today that no case against a minor for fornication had been submitted to the court at present.

The Maldives Police Service (MPS) has meanwhile confirmed that it had forwarded a case to the PG’s Office against a 15 year-old female for undisclosed reasons.

Back in June 2012, the same minor – a school student at the time – gave birth to a baby later discovered buried in the outdoor shower area of a home on Feydhoo. The discovery led to the arrest of four people, including the 15 year-old girl’s mother and step father.

Haveeru reported yesterday that the victim’s mother and step father had been charged with the murder of the baby. According to the newspaper, the girl’s step father also faces charges of possession of pornography and sexual abuse of a child.

Under the Child Sex Offenders (Special Provisions) Act of 2009, the penalty for child sex abuse is 10 to 14 years but can be extended to 15 to 18 years if the accused was in a position of trust with the children he or she abused.

The girl’s mother meanwhile faces charges under the 2009 law of deliberately concealing the alleged sexual abuse.

Charges

Department of Judicial Administration Director Maajid claimed that while no case had as yet been filed against the 15 year-old at the country’s courts, he understood that she faced criminal charges on a separate matter not related to the death of her child.

“As far as I know, the girl is being charged over a separate case of fornication, unrelated to the issue of the baby found buried,” he said.

Maajid claimed that although minors could not be charged for any crime under Islamic Shariah, Maldivian law did allow suspects under 18 years of age to be tried in the country’s Juvenile Court depending on the individual circumstances of each case.

“A minor is exempted from criminal liability in Islamic Shariah. Under Maldivian law, a minor of 15 to 18 years of age may be tried as a juvenile offender,” he said.

Maajid explained that juvenile offenders could be generally charged for any type of criminal offence.

Police Spokesperson Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef confirmed today that a case had been filed against the 15 year-old girl, but was unrelated to the discovery of her dead child last year. However, Haneef said that further details on the charges could not be given at present due to the child’s status as a minor in the eyes of the law.

The Police spokesperson referred the matter to Prosecutor General (PG) Ahmed Muizzu, who was not responding to calls today. Minivan News was awaiting a response from the PG’s Office at the time of the press.

Dr Mariyam Shakeela and Dr Aishath Rameela, the respective Acting Minister and State Minister for the Ministry of Gender, Family and Human rights were also not responding to calls at time of press.

In September last year, a 16 year-old girl was sentenced to house arrest and 100 lashes after being found guilty of fornication with a 29 year-old man.

Desperate measures

There have been a number of recent incidents reported in the media where pregnant women have been forced to take desperate measures such as self-induced abortions, infanticide or abandoning infants.

On December 26, 2012, police announced that a baby had been discovered abandoned on the side of a road in the Maafannu Ward of Male’.

Earlier the same month, a 26-year old male and 20-year old female were reportedly arrested in connection to the discovery of a five month-old foetus buried on a beach on the island of Maradhoo Feydhoo in Seenu Atoll.

Over the last two years, three other newborns have been found dead in the country.

Over the same period there have been two separate incidents where newborn children were discovered abandoned but alive.

Two foetuses were reported discovered during this two year period, one hidden in a milk tin and the other at the bottom of Male’s municipal swimming pool. Another fully-developed baby was thrown into a park having apparently been strangled with underwear tied around its neck.

The Centre for Community Health and Disease Control (CCHDC) has previously described these incidents, as well as the figures detailing an increase in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases, as evidence of a sexual health crisis in the Maldives.

Nazeera Najeeb, head of the reproductive health unit of the CCHDC, told Minivan News in an interview last year that the centre was witnessing an “alarming” increase in cases of underage and unplanned pregnancies, where some girls are getting pregnant “without even knowing it”.

“These unwanted pregnancies are subsequently resulting in more unsafe abortions, baby dumping or infanticide,” she noted.

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Judicial statistics show 90 percent of those convicted for fornication are female

Almost 90 percent of the people found guilty of “Zina” – fornication – and sentenced to flogging in 2011 were female, according to new statistics published by the Department of Judicial Administration last week.

A total of 129 fornication cases were filed last year and 104 people sentenced, out of which 93 were female. This includes 10 underage girls (below 18), 79 women between age 18-40 and and four women above 40 years.

Of the 11 males who were sentenced, only one was a minor, with the others aged between 25-40.

Compared to 2010, the overall sentences in fornication increased by 23 percent in 2011, but the number of males sentenced for flogging decreased by 15 percent while the women increased by 30 percent.

According to Maldivian law, a person found guilty of fornication is subjected to 100 lashes and sentenced to one year of house arrest or banishment while a minor’s flogging is postponed until she or he reaches 18.

It takes four witnesses or a confession to prove the offence in court based on Islamic Sharia. The Maldives’ legal system consists of elements of both common law and Sharia.

Earlier this year, the Maldives made international headlines when a 16 year-old girl was sentenced to 100 lashes and eight months house arrest by Hulhudhufaaru Magistrate Court in Raa Atoll, for fornication while the 29 year-old man  was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment after finding him guilty of sexually abusing the girl.

Being a minor, the court stated that the girl’s sentence would be implemented when she turned 18.

After visiting the country in November last year, UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay called for a moratorium on corporal punishment, describing it as “inhumane and degrading.”

“This practice constitutes one of the most inhumane and degrading forms of violence against women, and should have no place in the legal framework of a democratic country,” said Pillay.

However, her statements and calls for discussion on the issue were met with outrage from the opposition and religious Adhaalath party, giving rise to protests and demonstrations. The Foreign Ministry itself dismissed the calls for discussion on the issue, stating: “There is nothing to debate about in a matter clearly stated in the religion of Islam. No one can argue with God.”

Minivan News could not verify if all the people sentenced last year had been flogged at the time of the report’s release, although former Former Minister of Gender and Family Aneesa Ahmed confirmed that the sentences were being carried out.

The Judicial Sector Statistics Report 2011 highlights the sheer scale of the long-known and unaddressed issues of gender bias in the justice system.

A 2004 UNICEF study titled “Gender issues in the Maldives Criminal Justice System” raised serious concerns over cases of ‘Zina’ – both consensual and non-consensual alike.

As rape was at the time and is still defined as “forced fornication”, as with any other fornication case, four witnesses or a confession is still required by the court to prove rape.

“In these cases a woman’s accusations need to be verified by two men or four women, thus, rape and sexual violence remain impossible to prove in virtually all cases,” the 2004 study noted.

The prosecutor general’s office had earlier confirmed that as these two necessary elements are almost impossible to find, in all rape cases the suspects are charged with forced sexual misconduct, which carries a lesser punishment.

However if the victim is a minor, the PG says that such cases are tried under the 2009 Act on Stipulating Strict Punishment for Child Abusers.

This is the major reason why no rape cases were found in the new statistics revealed by the judiciary despite the high number of reported rape cases. It is also likely that rapes involving minors have fallen into the category of child abuse while others have been categorised under forced sexual misconduct.

However, its also noteworthy that in 2010, eight men were convicted for forced sexual misconduct but the following year the sentenced decreased by 50 percent. Out of the men charged with forced sexual misconduct in 2011, six walked free while only four were sentenced.

The 2004 study further added at the time the current law establishes a minimum age limit of 18 for a person to receive adult punishments, but one of the three exceptions is “if the woman has had a child.”

The Judicial report 2011 says that 10 females were convicted for “giving birth outside a wedlock”, including a minor – a criminal offense which explicitly is directed at women and carries a sentence of maximum one to two years house arrest.

The UNICEF study explained that the current law allows for a young woman under the age of 18, who has been a victim of sexual abuse and is consequently pregnant, to receive lashings in a public setting.

“The victim must then endure the pain and public humiliation of her situation, both the illegitimate pregnancy and the public lashings, which have significant ramifications for her subsequent life opportunities. The perpetrator, on the other hand, is likely to remain publicly unidentified.” it noted.

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Dhiraagu signed up for court video conferencing services

Maldives-based telecoms group Dhiraagu will provide video conference technology to link the country’s Criminal Court and Maafushi Magistrate Court under a new agreement with the Department of Judicial Administration, reports Haveeru.

Ibrahim Ahmed Manik , the Chief Judicial Administrator, said at a signing ceremony that launching the video service, which has been devised to remove potential difficulties in transporting people between the individual courts, had been delayed from earlier this year, adds the report.

The Department of Judicial Administration has also claimed that it has met about 99 per cent of the annual objectives stemming from its 2010 budget. These objectives include training for both judges and administrative staff in skill areas like conferencing and IT skills, as well as programmes to improve English, according to Haveeru.

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