In 2021, three children were victims of violence every day. 961 cases of violence against children were recorded this year. Of these, no less than 405 were cases of sexual assault. These are alarming figures published by the weekly newspaper La Vie éco, which in its edition of Friday 18 February, uses statistics revealed by Professor Ahmed Belhouss, founder of the Moroccan Society of Forensic Medicine, who also teaches forensic medicine at the Faculty of Medicine in Casablanca.
According to the same source, continues the weekly, sexual abuse is “a real scourge.” As proof, the latest statistics from the Ministry of Justice report 7,263 cases of violence against children that were handled by the courts in 2018, including 2,500 sexual assaults against minors. This, according to Professor Belhouss, proves that “sexual abuse ranks first in the ranking of violence against children.”
The weekly notes, moreover, that Morocco is no exception. The phenomenon of sexual abuse against minors is widespread throughout the world according to surveys conducted by various independent organizations, including Western. The weekly notes, in this sense, that one girl in eight and one boy in ten in the world are victims of sexual abuse before the age of 18.
Addressing the medico-legal side of the finding of a rape on a minor, the weekly magazine underlines that sexual assault is “a medico-legal emergency which requires the finding of recent clinical lesions before their healing”. It also requires the taking of medical (biology, toxicity…) and forensic (genetic fingerprints, sperm research…) samples.
When a girl is assaulted, the newspaper says, a specific procedure is set in motion. Thus, it explains, citing Dr. Belhouss, the finding of rape is immediately followed by the initiation of emergency contraception for adolescent girls. The process of taking care of the victims also includes the initiation of prophylactic treatment of sexually transmitted infections, both bacterial and viral.
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