Business Woman Reports Rape in Dubai Gets 16 Months in Prison

Let me tell you what it takes to get a rape conviction in Dubai:

“For a rape conviction, United Arab Emirates law requires either a confession or four adult male witnesses to the attack.” – USA Today

Four adult male witnesses?! So, four men watch a rape without doing anything to the rapist? Where are the men of compassion or high moral character that would never allow the rape to take place if they were witnessing it?

That kind of treatment of women is not new, but no one expects to enter Dubai as a foreign national and be treated the same. USA Today recently profiled a 24 year-old Norwegian business woman, Marte Deborah Dalelv, who reported to police that she had been raped. She was arrested, her money and passport confiscated. She spent four days in holding, then “was convicted of having sex outside of marriage and drinking alcohol,” according to the USA Today.

Her attacker, a co-worker got 13 months for the rape and drinking alcohol without a license (he must have confessed), but the rape didn’t change the fact that she had sex outside of marriage. Read more about the rape in Dubai on the Release Marte Dalelv Facebook page.

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