Rape In Africa: Somalia Girl Stabbed, Tortured And Raped In Viral Video

A 16-year-old girl in Somalia was gang raped by six teenage boys in a video that has been shared widely online. The footage showed her being stabbed, tortured and sexually assaulted.

The boys allegedly raped another girl but she was not included in the video. Five of them were arrested in connection with the rapes, while a sixth is still at large. The assault occured in December when the suspects brought the two girls to an area outside Galdogob on the eastern border of Ethiopia and attacked them.

"The men pulled up in a car alongside them and told them to get in. When they refused, they pushed them into the car and drove off," the mother of the victim, Shukri Abdullahi Sheikh Abdirahman, said. "They were taken into the car forcefully and then the men turned on music. They took them to the outskirts of the town and they did the ugly things that you have heard [about]."

The girl in the video has been hospitalized and was receiving treatment for significant injuries.

A GoFundMe was set up by Somali Faces, an organization that publishes stories of Somali people around the world, to help the rape victim and her family “rebuild their lives somewhere else” because they were forced to leave the town out of fear of being shunned by locals, the fundraiser’s page stated.

“Though we are not a charity... we couldn’t ignore this so we started a fundraiser for her. She could be your daughter, your sister, your niece or wife,” the page said.

The fundraiser has raised over $10,000 out of a $12,323 goal that was initially set at $6,200 but increased because the original goal was met.

In cases of rape, some practice the Somali tradition of “heer,” a legal system where elders get involved with criminal proceedings and compensation for crimes can be covered, resulting in the assailants avoiding jail time. Social media activists have advocated for the perpetrators to be punished accordingly, BBC News reported.