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Women’s advocate Nebila Abdulmelik, right, and colleague Kenedy Otina examine petition demanding justice for the Kenyan victim. Her attackers’ punishment? Mowing the police station lawn.
More than one million people across the world have signed an Internet petition demanding justice for a 16-year-old Kenyan girl who was gang raped and dumped into a deep toilet pit.
Her attackers were sentenced to mowing the lawn of a police station.
“Liz (a pseudonym) was walking home from her grandfather’s funeral when she was ambushed by six men who took turns raping her and and then threw her unconsicous body down a 6-meter [19.7-foot] toilet pit,” reads a preamble to the AVAAZ.org web petition.
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AVAAZ is an online human rights advocacy group.
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Nebila Abdulmelik, head of communications for the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), points to the AVAAZ web site petition for the rape victim.
The plight of Liz, who is permanently injured from the June attack and is now confined to a wheelchair, has become a source of outrage in Kenya, where rape is a longstanding, and often unpunished, crime.
The schoolgirl attacked in western Kenya suffered a broken back. She no longer has control over her bowels.
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She knew some of her attackers, and villagers took three of them to local police, who told the men to cut grass around the station and later released them, the girl’s mother told Kenyan reporters.
On Monday, the total number of online petition signers surpassed 1.6 million.
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A printout of the web site where more than 1.6 million people across the world have signed a petition demanding justice for the 16-year-old victim of gang rape.
Over the weekend, Police chief David Kimaiyo said in a statement that the “investigations are complete,” and that he was waiting on instructions from prosecutors about how to proceed. He gave no further details.
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A 2009 government study determined as much as one-fifth of women and girls in Kenya were victims of sexual violence.
Other estimates are higher. A 2010 U.N.-backed report said one third of Kenyan girls and one fifth of Kenyan boys suffered some form of sexual violence.
With News Wire Services
