14-year-old held on UAE adultery charge

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A 14-year-old Arab schoolgirl has been detained on a charge of adultery for the past two weeks and forced to undergo a virginity test in the United Arab Emirates, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Gulf News said police in the conservative emirate of Ajman had arrested the teenager after she met up with her boyfriend on the roof of her family home.

She has since been forced to undergo a gynaecological examination which "confirmed she was still a virgin", the unnamed girl's father was quoted as saying by the English-language daily.

"The police have ruined the future of my daughter as she missed the school exam. She has been in police custody since March 22," the father protested, adding that bail had been refused and the girl was being held with adult women.

The paper said the man involved in the case, in his mid-20s, was later arrested in in a neighbouring emirate.

"When police called me to report along with my daughter to the CID, I was clueless about what they wanted from me and from her," said the father, whose nationality was also not disclosed.

"I took ... (her) to police where I learnt that someone had complained against her that she was meeting an adult man on the roof of our building ... I told the police that I would handle the matter within the family."

But police arrested the girl and referred the case to Ajman's public prosecutor on an adultery charge.

"Police surprised me when they said she should go behind bars and I had to go back home without my daughter. I do not see the point in ruining the little girl's life and image," the distraught father said.