Africa’s human rights court has ordered Ethiopia to pay $150,000 (\u00a3100,000) compensation to a rape victim for failing to protect her rights.<\/p>\n
In 2003, Aberew Jemma Negussie was convicted of the abduction and rape of a 13-year-old girl.<\/p>\n
This was overturned on appeal as the prosecutor said only a virgin could be raped, and the victim could not prove she had been a virgin.<\/p>\n
Rights groups said this was a violation of local and international law.<\/p>\n
In 2007, Equality Now took the case to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights as “local avenues to justice were exhausted”.<\/p>\n
{{Rights violated}}<\/p>\n
Nine years later the African Union court based in The Gambia has ruled that Ethiopia had violated the girl’s rights to equality, dignity and a fair trial, among others.<\/p>\n
It said the money would be “compensation for the non-material damage she suffered as a result [of] the violations”.<\/p>\n
Equality Now described this as an “unprecedented ruling” that should send a message to “all levels of society”.<\/p>\n
The girl was abducted and raped in 2001, and after the incident was reported to the police she was rescued and the perpetrator was arrested.<\/p>\n
{{Abducted twice}}<\/p>\n
But, after being released on bail, Aberew abducted her again.<\/p>\n
She was held for a month before escaping, but while captive was forced to write her name on a piece of paper that would later be used as evidence of marriage.<\/p>\n
Abducting girls to be forcibly married is a traditional practice in parts of Ethiopia.<\/p>\n
{{Ethiopian girls fight child marriages}}<\/p>\n
After being caught for a second time, Aberew, and four accomplices were convicted in 2003, and he received a 10-year sentence.<\/p>\n
They were then released on appeal, but Equality Now argued that the law had not been correctly applied as “virginity is not a legal prerequisite for the offence of rape”.<\/p>\n
Following the acquittal, rights groups used the case to get a change in the law in Ethiopia to ensure better protection for rape victims.<\/p>\n
Equality Now says that the victim, now in her late 20s, is living in “relative safety and pursuing her education”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Africa’s human rights court has ordered Ethiopia to pay $150,000 (\u00a3100,000) compensation to a rape victim for failing to protect her rights. In 2003, Aberew Jemma Negussie was convicted of the abduction and rape of a 13-year-old girl. This was overturned on appeal as the prosecutor said only a virgin could be raped, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23833"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23833"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}