Morocco Postpones Trial in High-Profile Gang Rape Case of Minor

At the opening of the trial yesterday, Tuesday, June 25, 2019, the judge has, once again, decided to postpone the hearing to July 9 next, as two of the detainees still do not have lawyers, reports the AFP agency, which has been following this trial since the outbreak of this case, at the end of last year.

The main accused is being prosecuted for "human trafficking of a minor", "rape", "death threat", "torture and use of a weapon causing injury and psychological sequelae" and for "forming an organized gang, kidnapping and sequestration".

The other suspects are being prosecuted for "human trafficking of a minor", "death threat", "torture", "kidnapping", "rape", "failure to report a crime" and for "failure to assist a person in danger". These charges have been brought against ten of his alleged accomplices, while one last person is being prosecuted for "failure to report a crime" and for "failure to assist a person in danger". They face sentences of up to 20 years in prison.

The victim had been kidnapped, sequestered and raped, for two months, by young people from her village, as she had confided herself, in a video widely circulated on social networks. She showed her injuries, her sometimes obscene tattoos and her cigarette burns, on a large part of her body.

Unfortunately, Khadija’s case is not an isolated case in Morocco where, in 2017, nearly 6,000 cases of violence against children were handled by the country’s courts, according to figures published by UNICEF. The UN agency calls on the authorities to "quickly make the integrated territorial child protection systems operational".