Seyaj called on the President of the Court of Appeal in Hajjah governorate to intervene quickly and decisively to rescue and secure justice for a twelve-year-old girl who had been abducted by deception and was now being tried before the Abs district court for allegedly committing an ‘indecent act.’
The organization said the prosecution treated the girl as if she had fled willingly, ignoring the fact that a child of her age cannot give legally valid consent. Seyaj explained that the case also involved attempts to prosecute the girl’s guardian for supposedly obstructing the marriage, even though the alleged marriage followed an abduction.
The organization raised serious concerns, including the failure to investigate the case as abduction, the failure to refer the child for a medical examination to determine whether she had been raped, the failure to arrest all those involved, and the continued retention of the girl by a tribal sheikh despite her family’s demand for her return.
Seyaj called for all perpetrators to be prosecuted, for the girl to be medically examined and returned safely to her family under protection guarantees, and for the judiciary to stop treating similar cases as consensual ‘elopements’ when they in fact involve the exploitation of minors.
