WUNRN
|
A local
NGO's illustration used to raise awareness of sexual violence in |
NOUAKCHOTT, 8 May 2009 (IRIN) - Women in
Mauritania who press charges for sexual assault face the risk of jail time
because of poorly defined laws and stigma that criminalise victims rather than
offenders, according to a local UN-funded non-profit.
The
subject of rape is still so taboo in Mauritania that there is no mention of it
in the law and the word is absent from government documents, according to the
NGO Mauritanian Association for Maternal and Child Health, based in the capital
Nouakchott. “The problem of decriminalising the victim is [that] the law does
not define rape. How do you punish offenders if you have not clarified the
crime?” the association’s legal adviser Bilal Ould Dick said.
Sexual
violence is referred to as “injuries” in Health Ministry documents, while the
Ministry of Social Welfare, Children and Family refers to it as “domestic
violence” in official documents, said the non-profit’s president Zeinebou Mint
Taleb.
Honour
Aminetou
(not her real name), 22, told IRIN the police accused her of not having honour
when she reported to them that she had been raped at night in her home by
someone she did not know. “The police said that if I had not [been willing] to
give [my virginity], it could not have been taken.” She said at 22 years old,
she has lost her honour, dropped out of a computer training programme and can
no longer marry as a result of her attempt to press charges.
“No one
will accept me anymore. For my community, they think I just liked sex and in return
for this ‘sin’, I deserve to lose everything,” she said.
Sex crime
Legal
adviser Dick said the only parts of the law that criminalise any sexual act are
two articles prohibiting sex between unmarried persons. As a result, he said,
many alleged rape victims are accused of violating the law. “The [woman] will
be charged and punished instead of being legally protected.”
The police said that if
I had not [been willing] to give [my virginity], it could not have been taken |
He
said the situation is even worse for pregnant women since the pregnancy is seen
as “proof” of their crime. Seven women have been imprisoned in 2009 on charges
of violating the no-sex between unmarried persons legal code after they had
tried to denounce alleged offenders, according to the Mauritanian Association
for Maternal and Child Health.
NGO
president Taleb said if men are interrogated or detained, they are soon
released because of “lack of evidence”.
Matty
Mint Doide with the Ministry of Social Welfare, Children and Family told IRIN
the government is revising the penal code to define and criminalise rape and to
“apply related international conventions [against sexual violence]”.
Conventions against sexual and gender-based violence include the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment.
Human
Rights Commissioner Mohamed Lemine Ould Dadde told IRIN the government is
committed to defending women’s rights. He denied that women in
Since
2003 there have been 430 declared cases of sexual violence in
But the
Association for Maternal and Child Health’s Eyer Chaim, who is posted in the
Local
journalist Nourra Mint Semane told IRIN it is difficult to talk about rape at
all levels in
================================================================
To contact the list administrator, or to leave the list, send an email to:
wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com. Thank you.