Father, son jailed for raping disabled woman

By Viet Quoc   June 23, 2020 | 01:06 am PT
Father, son jailed for raping disabled woman
Nguyen Thanh Tam (L) and his son Nguyen Huu Thanh stand trial in Binh Thuan Province for raping a disabled woman, June 22, 2020. Photo by Binh Thuan Newspaper.
A Binh Thuan Province court has sentenced a father and son to three and nine years each for raping, impregnating an intellectually disabled woman.

Nguyen Thanh Tam, 43, was jailed for three years while his 20-year-old son Nguyen Huu Thanh got nine years after the latter was identified as the father of the baby, the court ruled Monday.

Both were forced to pay VND70 million ($3,016) in compensation for mental trauma and supporting the mother in raising the child.

According to the indictment, Thanh and the victim were cousins. In late 2018, he visited her home in Ham Thuan Nam District in the south central province of Binh Thuan, noting she lived alone. Thanh later forced her into a room where he raped her on two different occasions in the following days.

Thanh’s father also visited the victim’s home where he continued to rape her. Tam threatened to kill her if she revealed the secret.

In mid-2019, the victim’s mother noticed something amiss in her daughter and took her to a hospital where doctors found she was around six months pregnant. After the victim told her mother what had happened, she called on local police to launch a criminal investigation.

In November 2019, the victim gave birth to a boy, DNA results confirming Thanh to be the father.

The Central Institute of Mental Forensics in the southern province of Dong Nai concluded the victim suffered intellectually disability with limited cognition and behavior control.

Rape is punishable by death in Vietnam where around 2,000 sexual assaults are reported each year. Victims are mostly children and perpetrators family members, neighbors, school employees or other adults the children are familiar with.

 
 
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