Morocco: eleven rapists of a teenager sentenced to 20 years in prison

Eleven of the aggressors of a Moroccan teenager, victim of gang rape and kidnapping, were each sentenced to 20 years in prison, the lawyer for the civil party announced on Wednesday (September 22).

In a video released in the summer of 2018 that went viral, Khadija Okkarou, 17 at the time, said she was kidnapped, kidnapped, raped and martyred for two months by young people from her village of Oulad Ayad, near Beni Mellal (centre ) Her filmed testimony, in which she shows traces of cigarette burns and obscene tattoos that her assailants, according to her, forcibly engraved on her body during her confinement, raised an outcry in the kingdom and triggered a strong mobilization against “the culture of rape and impunity”.

Three years later, the criminal chamber of the Beni Mellal Court of Appeal convicted the 13 defendants on various charges, ranging from “trafficking in a minor”, “rape”, “formation of an organized gang” to “kidnapping and kidnapping, “the victim’s lawyer, Ibrahim Hachane, told AFP. Eleven of them were sentenced to 20 years in prison and another two were sentenced to two years in prison and one year’s suspension, he said, adding that Khadija Okkarou’s attackers were also sentenced to him. Pay 200,000 dirhams (approximately 19,000 euros) in damages.

“Given the seriousness of the facts, the sentence seems normal to us, it does not last, because the trafficking of minors is punishable by up to 30 years”, said Ibrahim Hachane, who will appeal the sentence in the first instance.

“The victim is still being treated, the aftereffects of what she experienced will accompany her throughout her life.”

Ibrahim Hachane, teenager’s lawyer

to AFP

Khadija Okkarou’s choice to publicly expose herself is a very rare step in a conservative society that forces rape victims to silence, for fear of reprisals, other people’s gaze, or the family’s reputation. Human rights associations and the media regularly sound the alarm about the violence suffered by women. A law against violence against women went into effect in 2018. Although, for the first time, it makes certain acts punishable by imprisonment “considered forms of harassment, aggression, sexual exploitation or ill-treatment”, was considered insufficient by feminist associations.

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