Law
The Law in the UAE has provided little redress for rape victims. Over 50% of women residents in the UAE who responded to a survey said they would not report a rape to police. In 2008, an Australian woman working in the UAE was gang raped after her drink was spiked. She reported it to the authorities and was imprisoned for 8 months on an adultery charge as extramarital sex is illegal in the UAE. In 2010 a Muslim woman in Abu Dhabi recanted her allegations of being gang-raped by 6 men after being threatened with corporal punishment for premarital sex. Nadya Khalife, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, has observed that "these charges will make young women in the UAE, citizens and tourists alike, think twice about seeking justice and reporting sexual assaults for fear of being charged themselves,"She also stated that "the message to women is clear: victims will be punished for speaking out and seeking justice, but sexual assault itself will not be properly investigated."
Read more about this topic: Women In The United Arab Emirates
Famous quotes containing the word law:
“Who to himself is law, no law doth need, Offends no law, and is a king indeed.”
—George Chapman (c. 1559–1634)
“I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They can only force me who obey a higher law than I.... I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)