DUBAI: Two Saudi Arabian men were sentenced to two months in prison on Thursday for “having sex with a minor” during a New Year's holiday in the United Arab Emirates. According to local reports, both men were convicted of having consensual sex with a minor, despite the 15-year-old girl's claims that she was forced to have sex with them in a hotel room. She is to be deported as part of her crime, court officials said. According to the girl's father, he searched the hotel for his daughter on the day of the crime, but could not find them. Hotel employees said the two men were seen with the girl near tennis courts before they took her to their room. In court, the young girl said that the men had offered to show her around Dubai, but took her to a hotel room where they undressed her and started kissing her. She told the judge she was crying but was too frightened to resist. She said the two men raped her, then put her in the shower to clean off the evidence. This is not the first such case in the Emirates to anger women's rights activists. In early October, two Pakistani men were charged with raping a Filipina waitress. Activists say they are unlikely to face harsh sentences and that the woman will be the one who faces the worst penalty. “Deporting a 15-year-old girl because she was raped is horrible, but what is worse is that the court ruled she wasn't raped, according to UAE's horrific laws that say a girl over 14 is at the age of consent,” said Mona Tarek, a women's rights researcher in Dubai. She believes the UAE needs to do a better job at valuing a woman's life and protection under the needs to improve. “We live in a society, where economically it is forward-thinking, when it comes to women, it is still so backward,” she added. BM
