South Central Division, Maldives – Maldives Police Service, on Tuesday, has revealed that a man has been arrested in the area falling under the South Central Police Division (Thaa atoll and Laamu atoll), for attempting to sexually assault a 14 year old girl.
Addressing the matter, Maldives Police Service said that the man is accused of grooming the teen girl over the course of two days, encouraging her to have sexual relations with him and that he had even attempted to sexually assault her. Police further revealed that the case was reported to the institution on September 30th.
It was later revealed that a 35 year old local man was arrested in connection to the case and that upon being presented in front of a judge, the court had ordered him to be remanded in jail for a period of 15 days.
While it is being further investigated, no further information has been revealed by Maldives Police Service as it involves a minor.
The number of sexual assault and sexual abuse cases of minors has been on the rise, with major cases having have been reported to relevant authorities over the course of 2020, including 36 cases of sexual abuse against children reported in the month of August alone.
With this, survivor support movements have surfaced, including protests held in Male’ and other parts of the Maldives calling for sexual abuse and sexual violence to be met with harsher punishments, after the ‘Safari Rape’ case. The government officially delineated rape and declared sexual abuse of children as serious criminal offenses on 23rd September 2020, with the ratification of the Criminal Procedure Act.
