Brussels, 04/03/2013 (Agence Europe) - Appalled by the sentencing of a young 15-year-old girl in the Maldives to one hundred lashes and eight months' house arrest after she admitted having sex before marriage, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton has called for the prosecution and sentence to be retracted, Ashton's spokesperson announced on 1 March. “Corporal punishment, including flogging, amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, and the fact that the convicted person is a child makes the court sentence even more cruel and inhumane”, he said.
Adding that the girl is allegedly a victim of long-standing sexual abuse, the spokesperson stated that inflicting corporal punishment on a victim of sexual abuse is in direct contradiction with the international obligations of the Maldives that oblige it to implement prevention measures, and to prosecute the perpetrators and protect the victims of sexual abuse.
Ashton notes the statement by the government of the Maldives expressing concern over this case, her spokesperson concluded. (CG/transl.fl)