Authorities in Maldives have sentenced on Tuesday a 15-year-old girl to receive a hundred lashes and eight months of house arrest after she confessed to having premarital sex.
According to a CNN report, the Islamic island nation's Juvenile Court confirmed that the unidentified teenager has confessed during a court hearing to charges of fornication which is punishable under Sharia law. The sentence has provoked outrage from international human rights organizations who claim the teenager was sexually abused by her father.
"We have explained to her how if she wants to receive the punishment (the lashings) right now she can ... or it can be postponed until she turns 18," registrar Zaima Nasheed Aboobakur told CNN.
Citing laws restricting the disclosure of information about a case involving a minor, authorities have not provided details about what led to the teen's arrest. Reports by Amnesty International say she was taken into custody for question when police found the remains of a dead baby.
The teen was not the mother of the dead child and authorities are not releasing the names of the parents. But during questioning the teenager confessed to authorities that she had consensual premarital sex, CNN reports. At this time no one has been charged in death of the baby.
After her confession investigators arrested her stepfather. The teenager is being held at a government run children's home awaiting her punishment.
Officials at Amnesty International told CNN the teenage girl is a victim who was sexually abused by her father and forced to confess, however authorities refute those claims and say the charges against the stepfather are not related to the fornication charges.
"Confession from a child who has really gone through some damaging experiences cannot be taken as evidence," said Abbas Faiz, a researcher at Amnesty International who is familiar with the details of the case. "If she had said no, then the only case that would have gone forward would have been the charge of sexually abusing a minor against the stepfather."
Officials at the President's Office say they believe the girl is a victim but say they are powerless to stop the punishment from being enforced also adding that the lashing is ceremonial and not a painful sentence.
"They just pretend she's been lashed. It's not a painful process. She is taken to one side and she is patted on her backside with this lashing. It's not used hard. It's just a token, a token exercise. It's a belief," Masood Imad, spokesman at the President's Office, told CNN.