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Here in the United States, if you get caught having relations with several different men, no doubt someone would end up peeved. As long as you don’t have a ring on your finger, though, what you do in your personal life is your business, right? If you’re married, straying could wreak havoc on your marriage and could even end in divorce. Well, in the Maldives, women who are caught for engaging in extramarital sex get flogged.
The Independent reports that almost 150 women living in the Muslim country face a public flogging after being convicted by the country’s conservative courts. Although about 50 men also will be dealt the hurtful blows, many other men before them have escaped the punishment. Women don’t get off so easy. Earlier this month, an 18-year-old woman fainted after she was flogged 100 times for having sex with two different men. The accused men were acquitted. Some are blaming the resurgence of flogging on a more conservative wave of Islam sweeping the nation and the implementation of certain elements of Sharia law. Many are looking to the new president for action.
Amnesty International says statistics show that 184 people in the Maldives were sentenced to flogging in 2006; 146 of them were women. The group is calling on the Maldives government to halt the practice, which it says violates international human rights laws.
“It’s a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, which is banned by international human rights law,” said Abbas Faiz, Amnesty International’s researcher on the Maldives. “The practice is humiliating and leads to psychological as well as physical scars for those subjected to it. The severity of the pain and suffering often means that whipping is in fact a form of torture.”
