Libyan Government Plans To Offer Compensation To All Women Raped In 2011 Conflict

Though official numbers are not known and discussion of rape is taboo, Libya's government plans to offer unspecified compensation to all women raped in the conflict.

Libya plans to offer compensation to women raped during the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that removed Muammar Gaddafi from power. Hundreds of women may have been raped during the conflict, but there are no exact numbers from the eight-month conflict.

Justice Minister Salah al-Marghani said that a law had been issued that would recognize all women raped during the conflict as war victims, making them equal with wounded veterans.

Evidence of systematic rape is scarce, but it's been documented that rape was used as a weapon to assault families' and communities' honor and to gain information.

Rape being used as a weapon in the Libyan conflict was first brought to international attention with the case of Iman al-Obeidi when she attempted to tell journalists about the gang-rape she suffered at the hands of Gaddafi’s soldiers.

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