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Sex, Stonings, and Back Street Abortions: The Truth Behind the Maldives 'Tropical Paradise' Image

In an extract from his new book, author JJ Robinson paints a picture of the Maldives far different from the one we see in the Instagram snaps of the rich and famous.
Malé city, photo by Shahee Ilyas via Wiki Commons

JJ Robinson was the editor of the Maldives' first independent English language news service. The following is adapted from his book,'Maldives: Islamic Republic, Tropical Autocracy,' a first-hand investigation of the seamy, dangerous, and greedy politics that underpin the globally renowned tourist destination.

Few places in the world see celebrity soccer players, Russian oligarchs, arms dealers, Madonna, and the Taliban occupying the same stretch of sand, let alone infinity plunge pool. But the Maldives is where the rich, famous, and notorious go for their private romantic getaways, and the isolation, unique geography, and no-questions-asked visa policy of the Indian ocean archipelago offers rare freedom from prying eyes.

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Predictably, the Maldivian regime's declaration last week of a state of emergency (which has since been lifted) triggered another wave of "Trouble in Paradise" headlines. But this is a misnomer: paradise in the Maldives is strictly reserved for tourists, the resorts demarcated from the rest of the country. Few tourists looked up from their daiquiris amid a week of presidential assassination plots, exploding yachts, bomb threats, internecine political battles, pro-democracy protests, and illicit extraditions, just as few did during the 2012 coup that toppled the country's first democratically-elected leader. The resorts might as well be in a different country.

The Maldives as experienced by most Maldivians is quite the opposite of paradise—but "Trouble in Trouble" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Half the population of 350,000 live in the capital city of Malé, a congested concrete jumble of candy-colored buildings barely 2.2 square kilometers [1.4 square miles] in size. Alcohol is banned, entertainment options are limited. Sixty percent of the population is under the age of 25, preyed upon by violent gangs and Islamic radicals, and crippled by drug abuse and boredom. A blackmarket bottle of vodka can cost up to $140 USD; brown sugar heroin can be at the door faster than a pizza.

The constitution nonetheless mandates that 100 percent of the population be Muslim, a facet of life strictly enforced both by the authorities and the threat of extreme social ostracism. Tourists on romantic resort getaways blissfully sun themselves on beaches a few hundred feet from "local" islands where Maldivian women are routinely sentenced to 100 lashes for the crime of extramarital sex. Last month a woman was sentenced to death by stoning, although fortunately, this was later overturned.

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Maldivian rulers have often exploited Islamic nationalism, inventing threats, and unifying the population under the banner of "defending Islam" from other religions. But it is the criminalization of extramarital sex rather than proselytizing that undoubtedly contributes to one of the Maldives' more surprising statistics: the world's highest divorce rate.

The reasons are complex—and a fascinating example of a people and culture adapting to suit enforced conservatism.

"It is easy to marry in these islands because of the smallness of the dowries and the pleasures of society which the women offer," observed the famous Islamic explorer Ibn Battuta, writing in the 14th century.

"Most people do not even fix any dowry. When the ships put in, the crew marry; when they intend to leave, they divorce their wives. This is a kind of temporary marriage (muta). I have seen nowhere in the world women whose society was more pleasant."

High praise indeed from one of the most traveled explorers of all time.

Unlike the rest of South Asia, weddings are not considered a big deal in the Maldives. I've been two minutes late to a Maldivian wedding and missed it. The couple stand up, exchange rings and a token dowry of several rufiyaa, the imam gives some wholesome family planning advice, and if it's particularly lavish, there might be a tray of hors d'oeuvres to eat on your way out the door.

Just as weddings are considered somewhat arbitrary, so is divorce. While a man gets a three month "probationary period" on marriage and can always divorce his wife simply by saying "I divorce you" three times, a woman has to go through the court system. All the same, there is no social stigma around divorce for women. I recall one recently married fisherman boasting that his new wife had been married six times; this, he explained with a sly wink, meant she was experienced. The figure was about average for a woman in her forties.

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Despite the emphasis on conservative appearance and the vicious social ostracism of anyone caught with their pants down, many Maldivians were surprisingly liberal in their views towards sex. Extramarital sex might have been a crime, but other people's wives and husbands were fair game.

For their part, Maldivian women had been pressured into wearing the headscarf—a recent innovation—but compensated for this with tight skinny jeans and tops that looked like they had been sprayed on. The effect was somehow more revealing than the Western casual dress that so offended the mullahs. Female clothing shops in Malé had shop dummies in the window with revealing strips of fabric, cocktail dresses of the kind a teenager might wear to distress her parents. To be fair, a 16-year-old girl who bought and actually wore one of these in 2013 was swiftly taken into custody under the Anti-Social Behaviour Act, but not before she had drawn a large crowd of men concerned for her lax morals.

"The societal norms and values of Maldivian culture were violated," the police spokesman advised us. "Police officers explained to her about how her dress should be as well as called her parents and advised them regarding this."

"She was very, very, very, very naked. Her dress was transparent," he added.

The capital city of Malé even had a sex shop, although it was relatively tame by Western standards. The owner of "G-Spot," Mohamed Nizam, had endless trouble with the Ministry of Economic Development over his registered business name, which he insisted stood for "girl"—going so far as to scrawl the extra letters on the shop hoarding. The case eventually ended up in the civil court, the state attorney alleging that the name was "inappropriate for viewing by women and children."

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Nizam defended himself, producing as evidence printouts of articles from the Times, BBC, and CNN stating that the G-Spot did not exist, and how could he therefore be found guilty of using the name inappropriately?

"What Nizam has failed to comprehend during all the legal wranglings is that even if he does get permission to continue to trade under said name he will still struggle for custom as most men will almost certainly not be able to locate it," suggested one commentator on the article.

Whether due to prohibition or the heat, sex was on brain in the Maldives. The lack of cognitive dissonance meant as long as the illusion of Islamic conservatism was maintained, as long as the boat wasn't rocked, as long as nothing was stated, written down, admitted, or confessed to, as long as you weren't caught—ordinary people could be surprisingly accepting.

The lack of stigma surrounding divorce did not extend to having a child out of wedlock, which showered not just the woman but also the child in shame. This was why women were overwhelmingly the victims of flogging convictions: a bump was as good as a confession, while the men rarely showed up to court to confess their own, less obvious involvement.

High promiscuity and high rates of unprotected sex (90 percent, according to one study), coupled with the threat of Sharia punishments and social ostracism, meant a culture of horrific covert abortions. These stories were among the bleakest we covered. A particularly horrible two weeks in early 2011 turned up a premature baby thrown into the water at Malé's outdoor swimming area, another hidden inside an empty Coast Milk tin. Another had been thrown into the bushes, strangled with a pair of black pants.

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In another instance the local newspaper, Haveeru, carried a picture of a discarded fetus in a bucket. For some reason they had chosen to mask the fetus's identity with a tiny black strip where the eyes presumably were.

"Look at this!" said one of our journalists excitedly, brandishing the photo. "It looks like a frog," observed another.

The fundamentalist Adhaalath Party called for the mothers to be found and sentenced to death. Abortion was an issue that should concern all Maldivians, the party declared, and people should be "very afraid" given the "rising popularity of fornication."

Afraid they were. Most often the mothers were caught, quickly confessing under police interrogation. I still remember a series of haunting mugshots sent to us by police of a pair of teenage girls barely out of puberty. One had tried to help her friend dispose of a premature infant and had been stopped by somebody on the island. Her frightened face and trembling lip barely made it to the bottom of the police height chart.

Maldives: Islamic Republic, Tropical Autocracy by JJ Robinson is out on November 23.