Around 30 people have been detained after a 13-year-old girl was raped in the village of Gakh in northwest Azerbaijan, alleged Gulnara Mehdiyeva, an Azerbaijani feminist activist living abroad in exile. One of those detained was reportedly a police officer.
Mehdiyeva wrote about the events on Facebook on Wednesday. In her post, she claimed that another police officer had fled the country.
‘It is noted that five of the 30 people committed this crime as part of a group, and the rest, at different times’, Mehdiyeva wrote.
Mehdiyeva told OC Media that the person who anonymously shared with her the news claimed that the incident happened around one month ago.
Later, confirmation of the news came from Kamala Aghazada, the head an Azerbaijani children’s rights organisation, who stated that the girl had confessed to her mother that she had been raped.
‘Regarding the criminal case, several men were detained’, Aghazada wrote on Facebook on Thursday, claiming that any information about police officers being involved was ‘disinformation’.
Aghazada told OC Media that she had asked the Interior Ministry about the possibility of police being involved, but that they had denied police were implicated.
‘I learnt that the girl lives with her mother, and in this case, I stressed that the responsibility of the parents should be expanded. I have no information about her father, and it means that her mother is the only one who raised her daughter’, Aghazada said, adding that ‘In this case, only the mother is a breadwinner, and her father should also be found, and should be obliged to economically support the mother’.
The pro-government media outlet Qafqazinfo wrote that the State Committee for Family, Women, and Children has sent an official appeal to the relevant state bodies.
‘The executive authority of the Gakh region conducted an inspection of the family where the minor lives and assessed the general condition of the child. Currently, the child’s condition is satisfactory; there is no need for emergency intervention, she has been taken into custody’, the statement said.
Aghazada also told OC Media about a separate case in the Yardimli district in southern Azerbaijan, where an underage girl was allegedly raped by 17 men.
‘That is why I’m saying there should be formulated data, and that the government structures, along with NGOs should work on these cases in coordination between institutions. And in this regard, I think it is high time to develop a National Action Programme’, Aghazada told OC Media, arguing that these actions were needed in order to prevent such cases. She also stated that ethical standards for police should be increased.
Aytan Farhadova
Feminist activist Vafa Naghi also told OC Media about another case of group-rape. According to her, an underage girl in the Neftchala district reported in 2021 that 10 people had raped her, but only one person was detained after the others bribed the police.
Naghi stressed that after going to the police, the girl was taken to a shelter in Baku. However, she only spent one year there before returning to her family.
‘The first person who raped her was the husband of her aunt, and now this girl lives with her aunt’, Naghi said, adding that her aunt had blamed the girl for the rape.
Xandie (Alexandra) Kuenning
