MALDIVES TEENAGER FACES LASHING FOR PRE-MARITAL SEX
MALE, Sept 4, 2012 (AFP) - A court in the Maldives has ordered a public flogging for a 16-year-old girl who confessed to having premarital sex, defying UN pressure to drop corporal punishment of women, officials said Tuesday.
The unnamed teenager was convicted on her confession under sharia law after her family complained that she has had sex with a 29year-old man in July.
The man was given 10 years in jail during a court hearing in the remote Raa atoll on Sunday.
A court official said the girl, whose identity was not revealed, could refuse the public flogging and would then instead be subjected only to eight months house arrest under local laws.
The court ordered the lashing to be carried out when she reached the age of 18.
“In most cases, the offenders would accept the lashing as part of penance,” a court official who declined to be named said.
The latest court ruling came 10 months after UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay urged the Maldives to stop publicly flogging women for having extra-marital or premarital sex.
Pillay noted during a visit to the country that the Maldives had progressed in safeguarding the rights of its 330,000 Sunni Muslims, but more needed to be done to protect women.
Flogging is normally handed down as a punishment by village chiefs who also act as local judges. A cane is used.