Maldives authorities silent on rape and sexual assault statistics

Maldivian authorities have been unable to provide basic statistics on rape and sexual assault.

The Maldives Independent contacted the police and the Prosecutor General’s Office on Wednesday to ask about arrests, prosecutions and convictions for rape and other sexual offences, but nobody was able to give this information.

The query followed media reports of a minor being raped in the capital on Tuesday night.

The 16-year old was assaulted during her college break at around 8pm, after she was taken to an unspecified location by two men. She knew one of her attackers, a source told VFP.

She told her family about the rape after returning to Hulhumalé around 10pm, a relative told Mihaaru.

The teen went to Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital for a sexual assault forensic examination and reported the rape to police.

Police are investigating the case, but did not say if arrests had been made. The gender ministry is working on the case because of her age.

The Maldives Independent wanted to know how many rape and sexual offence arrests had been made in 2017 and 2018.

It also wanted to know how many rape and sexual offence cases had been brought for prosecution, and how many convictions there had been for these crimes in 2017 and 2018.

The lack of information was concerning, human rights advocate Shahindha Ismail said.

“Each institution needs to have their own statistics available and it should be collected for the purpose of annual reporting too. I think centralising the statistics and making them accessible for analysis should be a priority of the government.”

There have been 159 cases of gender-based violence reported to the gender ministry in the first half of this year. Seven of these are rape cases.

There were 33 cases of gender-based violence reported in June.

There were 355 sexual offence cases reported to police in 2017. Figures for 2018 are unavailable.

Photo by Shaari