GAROWE (Halbeeg News) – Puntland’s Attorney General on Tuesday revealed statistics on how his government has handled rape cases since January this year.
The offices said the semiautonomous region handled 48 rapes.
The report also indicates that over 50 individuals are in the Puntland court system awaiting trial for sexual assault cases.
“In the last eight months, the Puntland Criminal Investigative Department has recorded 48 rape cases which later submitted to the office of the Attorney General,” said Hassan Ahmed who works at the office of the AG.
Puntland has been under the radar of international community over it’s handling of controversial rape cases since last year when three girls were raped in Galdogob.
Five men were accused of gang-raping and violently assaulting a 16-year old girl and her friend after kidnapping the pair off the street.
A video, filmed by the perpetrators in an attempt to keep the girl from speaking out was leaked online and repulsed millions of Somali’s at home and abroad.
A sharia court that convened in Galdogob found five of the six men guilty of rape and were sentenced to a combination of lashes, fines, and prison sentences.
Somalia’s northern Puntland state passed a landmark law in 2016 criminalizing sex crimes such as gang rape but campaigners say police in the conservative region are either unaware of it or do not see violence against women as a serious crime.
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