Tanzanian leader John Magufuli pardons two men who raped 10 schoolgirls
London — The president’s decision to pardon two convicted child rapists in Tanzania sends a chilling message to survivors, in a climate of increasing violations of girls’ rights, activists said. Tanzanian President John Magufuli pardoned singer Nguza Viking, also known as Babu Seya, and his son Johnson Nguza, known as Papii Kocha, on Saturday for raping 10 primary schoolgirls, aged between six and eight, in 2003. "Tanzania’s leaders are promoting a culture of human rights violations in which young victims of sexual violence are being punished while perpetrators are going free," said Faiza Mohamed, Africa director of the rights group Equality Now. Viking and Nguza served 13 years of their life sentences. Their release sends out "a terrible message to women and girls about the lack of protection they can expect from the state", Mohamed told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. In Tanzania, it is extremely difficult for rape survivors to secure convictions and few cases ever make it to cour...
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