The Nobel Laureate who shook the Maldives in 2011

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights then turned to flogging. She called it "a powerful illustration" of discrimination against women and girls. "This practice constitutes one of the most inhumane and degrading forms of violence against women, and should have no place in the legal framework of a democratic country," she told MPs.

The backlash was swift and fierce. Islamic Minister Dr Abdul Majeed Abdul Bari defended flogging as a hudud punishment prescribed in the Quran, "a tenet of Islam [that] cannot be changed." Chief Justice Ahmed Faiz said free expression must remain within Islamic bounds. The opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party said "neither a Maldivian nor a foreigner" had the right to call an Islamic punishment a human rights violation. Both opposition and ruling party lawmakers criticised Speaker Abdulla Shahid for letting her speak. The Adhaalath Party alleged a conspiracy to "introduce false religions" and demanded condemnation by the president.

A Facebook group called for her to be "slain and driven out of the country". Protesters gathered outside the UN office in Malé demanding Pillay's arrest. A coalition of NGOs announced a nationwide protest for 23 December against the government's alleged efforts to secularise the country, firing the opening salvo of a scorched earth battle that culminated in then-President Mohamed Nasheed's resignation less than seven weeks after the mass rally. 

Last week, Pillay, 85, was awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee celebrated the South African jurist as "a person who with exceptional courage and integrity has led the way towards a more comprehensive global legal order."

Fifteen years later, much of what the UN human rights chief asked for remains undone. In March this year, the government formally declined UN Human Rights Council recommendations on citizenship, migrant workers and equal rights in marriage and divorce. 

Pillay's visit marked the first by a UN Human Rights Commissioner to the Maldives. She spent three days in the country at the invitation of then-President Mohamed Nasheed. Titled ‘Responding to the Past while Safeguarding the Future: the Challenge of Protecting Human Rights in the Context of Democratic Transition,’ her keynote address to parliament ranged from independent institutions to transitional justice. The passage that kicked off the firestorm came under women's rights. "I strongly believe that democracy for the half the people is no democracy at all," she said.

Flogging for extra-marital sex was "a serious blot on the country's otherwise increasingly positive and progressive image overseas," she said at a press conference later that day.

"There should be no place for flogging anywhere in the 21st century, and by continuing to carry out floggings – albeit only occasionally – the Maldives is in breach of its obligations under several international treaties," she told reporters.

"I discussed with the [resident and his ministers, as well as with the members of the judiciary I met during this visit, how to bring a halt to a practice that has long been recognised in international law as cruel and degrading treatment that often amounts to torture. At the very least, pending more permanent changes in the law, it should be possible for the government and the judiciary to engineer a practical moratorium on flogging."

Pillay cited the closure of former Haveeru editor Ismail Khilath Rasheed's blog as a sign of "a rise in religious intolerance among a small but intimidating minority." On 10 December, Human Rights Day, Hilath took part in a silent protest in Malé calling for religious freedom. A group of men threw stones at the protesters, fracturing Hilath's skull.

In June 2012, Hilath narrowly survived after his throat was slashed. In 2019, a presidential inquiry commission held an al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadi group responsible for the attack, tying the same group of radicalised Maldivians to the Sultan park bombing and violent confrontation with the security forces in late 2007, the murder of Dr Afrasheem in October 2012, the abduction of journalist Ahmed Rilwan in August 2014 and the murder of blogger Yameen Rasheed in April 2017.

"Intolerance, whether religious or racial or in any other of its many manifestations, is the enemy of democracy. It promotes fear and inequality, and stifles initiative. I urge all Maldivians to resist any efforts to stoke this type of hostility which can only mar this lovely country, with its unique culture and environment," Pillay said.

She went on to flag article 9(d) of the constitution, which requires all Maldivian citizens to be Muslim. The provision was "discriminatory and does not comply with international standards," she said. The constitution also prohibits the enactment of any law “contrary to any tenet of Islam" and the Maldives accedes to international conventions with reservations on religious matters. 

Pillay was widely misreported as saying that she did not believe the Maldives had a constitution. When Miadhu Editor Abdulla Latheef asked “if you believe we have a constitution, why are you speaking against our constitution?” she replied: “I don’t believe you have a constitution, you have a constitution. The constitution conforms in many respects to universally respected human rights. Let me assure you that these human rights conform with Islam,” Pillay said in the Maldives Independent's (then Minivan News) recording of the exchange. 

At the Maldives' Universal Periodic Review in Geneva last November, where the country's human rights situation was examined by the UN Human Rights Council, Attorney General Ahmed Usham defended both the citizenship requirement and absence of freedom of religion. 

"For more than eight centuries, Islam has been the foundation of the Maldivian identity and social framework. Our constitution reflects the sovereign will of our people by establishing Islamic principles as a core basis of our legal and governance framework," he said. The country's legal system "does not accommodate practices that fall outside this religious and cultural context, including in matters of conscience and personal conduct," he added.

"While the administrative processes for naturalisation have been streamlined over the years, the constitutional requirement regarding faith in case of citizenship remains unchanged," he said.

He added that "freedom of religion beyond Islam is not recognised under Maldivian law", and that the Maldives did not intend to revisit its reservations to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

In his closing statement, Usham added: "The Maldivian identity is deeply rooted in Islam, an uncompromisable tenet of our national fabric and enshrined in our constitution. It shapes our values, informs our laws, and guides our social and moral compass. Our commitment to human rights is pursued in harmony with these foundational principles, ensuring that our obligations are implemented in a manner that respects both our constitutional framework and our international commitments."

In 2009, the Maldives Independent reported the case of an 18 year-old woman who fainted after a 100 lashes, promoting calls from Amnesty International for a moratorium on the "inhumane and degrading punishment."

Of 184 people sentenced to public flogging in 2006, 146 were female, making it nine times more likely for women to be punished. In 2011, 93 of the 104 people sentenced in fornication cases were women.

In September 2012, a court sentenced a 16-year-old girl to 100 lashes for pre-marital sex. In February 2013, the Juvenile Court sentenced a 15-year-old rape victim to 100 lashes and eight months' house arrest. The High Court later quashed the conviction after an international outcry. 

In 2015, the penal code was amended to require the appeal process to be concluded before a sharia punishment could be enforced. A Supreme Court guideline later deferred flogging of minors until they turned 18. 

Between January and August 2022, the courts handed down eight flogging sentences. Two women were sentenced to flogging for fornication over the same period in 2023, according to the US State Department, which said none was carried out. 

In 2007, the UN committee that monitors the women's rights convention, CEDAW, recommended the abolition of flogging for consensual sex outside marriage. The committee repeated the call in 2015 "as a matter of urgency," noting that flogging "disproportionately affect women and girls and deter them from reporting sexual offences."

The UN human rights office's compilation for the Maldives' latest review recorded the same call, which was echoed by the UN working group on discrimination against women and girls and the UN country team.

At the Maldives' 2021 hearing before the CEDAW committee, the government delegation said penal code safeguards made it practically impossible to sentence anyone to flogging, according to the UN's summary of the session. 

At the country's fourth Universal Periodic Review in Geneva last November, Denmark asked the Maldives to decriminalise consensual sex between adults outside marriage. The government "noted" it, the UPR term for declining a recommendation.

"I also urge you to discuss the withdrawal of the remaining reservation to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women concerning equality in marriage," Pillay told MPs in 2011.

The formal withdrawal came more than eight years later. In February 2020 the government withdrew parts of its reservation to Article 16 of the convention, saying those clauses had become obsolete through new laws on marriage and the family. But reservations remained concerning the same right to enter marriage, the same rights during marriage and at divorce, the same rights as parents and the same rights over guardianship and adoption.

At last year's UPR, the government supported five recommendations to finish reviewing the Family Act in line with CEDAW. It noted the two that spelt out equal rights for men and women in marriage and divorce.

A law against domestic violence, one of several bills Pillay described as "both necessary and overdue", was passed in April 2012. But Human Rights Watch said last year that survivors still struggle to obtain protection and justice under the law. At the UPR, the government supported Gabon's call to conclude the process of revising the law.

Pillay also advised expanding women's role through island councils. After a quota was introduced under the Decentralisation Act to reserves a third of council seats for women, women's representation in local government has risen from 6.1 per cent in 2017 to 39.7 per cent. 

Migrant workers, "especially those from Bangladesh", were often "abused, exploited and cheated of their hard-earned income", Pillay told reporters. She urged the Majlis to pass a comprehensive law enforcing the constitution's ban on discrimination. She also called on the government to ratify the UN migrant workers convention, "that one outstanding core international treaty that the Maldives has not yet ratified".

The convention remains unratified. Since the Maldives ratified the convention on enforced disappearance in 2023, it is the only one of the nine core UN human rights treaties the country has not joined. 

"At this stage, the Maldives is not in a position to accede to the Migrant Workers Convention…due to resource and legal constraints," Usham told the UNHRC in November, adding that domestic law "provides adequate protection for migrant workers".

Migrant workers reportedly made up "up to 25 per cent of the population" in 2011, Pillay observed. The foreign population currently stands at 196,024, more than a quarter of residents. By the end of October 2025, the government's Operation Kurangi had collected biometric data from 188,359 migrant workers, Homeland Security Minister Ali Ihusaan told the UPR. 

Since 2019, Pillay has sat as a judge ad hoc, chosen by The Gambia, in the genocide case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice. The Maldives filed a declaration of intervention in that case in November 2023. The court admitted it in July 2024.

But the Maldives government has not acknowledged Pillay's award. The only political figure to publicly congratulate her was former President Nasheed.

Pillay closed her 2011 speech with a prediction. "I firmly believe that the Maldives can make history as a moderate Islamic democracy," she said. "This opportunity cannot be missed, for the benefit of Maldives and of the wider region."

"I can assure you, Madam High Commissioner, that we will not let our guard down," Speaker Shahid replied from the chair. "We know how difficult the road ahead of us is."