THE 12-year-old girl at the centre of a controversy after she married her rapist is doing fine while her husband is in jail.
Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Rohani Abdul Karim said the girl was now living with her parents in Kota Kinabalu, but would not be going back to school.
She said the girl, now 16, was still married to Riduan Masmud, 44, who was currently serving a 12-year jail term after being convicted in 2015.
“We visited the girl at her family home on April 18 and she is in good health while the husband is serving time,” she told Teo Nie Ching (DAP-Kulai) in a written reply.
The girl, said Rohani, had also visited Riduan, a former restaurant manager, at the Kepayan prison in Kota Kinabalu early this year.
However, she said the girl had told a welfare officer during a visit in 2014 that she had no interest in going back to school as she felt embarrassed due to the wide media coverage on her case.
Riduan, a father of four, was convicted of raping the girl in a vehicle near Kionsom Waterfall in Inanam between 9am and 10am on Feb 18, 2013.
He married the girl in May that year in a bid to escape conviction but was charged with bribing the girl’s father with RM10,000 to withdraw the police report.
Ridhuan went to jail after the Kota Kinabalu High Court dismissed the appeal over his statutory rape case in 2015.
