A woman in Somalia said she was raped by some security forces, so she has been given a year in jail “for making a false accusation and insulting a government body.”
Judge Ahmed Aden Farah said the woman would not go to jail immediately as she is caring for a young child.
How very generous.
The woman had reported the alleged rape at a police station in Hodan, a district in Mogadishu where many displaced people live.
“We sentence her for offending state institutions by claiming she was raped,” the AFP news agency quotes the judge as saying.
“She will spend one year in prison after finishing the breastfeeding of her baby.”
State institutions in Somalia sure are easily offended, aren’t they.
Last month, the UN special representative on sexual violence, Zainab Hawa Bangura, said the Somali government’s approach to the case did not “serve the interest of justice; it only serves to criminalise victims and undermine freedom
of expression for the press”.
Well the woman can consider herself lucky she wasn’t stoned to death. Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was.