Mongolia’s criminal code outlaws sexual intercourse through physical violence (or threat of violence) and provides for sentences of up to five years. If the victim is injured or is a minor, the penalty can reach five to 10 years. Such a crime resulting in death, victimizing a child under 14 years of age, or committed by a recidivist may result in 15 to 25 years’ imprisonment or application of the death penalty. Gang rape is punishable by death.

Nevertheless, no law specifically prohibits spousal rape, and rape remained a problem in 2009 due to a lack of support in the country’s institution for victims of rape and a lack of means in rural areas to prosecute rapists.

During the year 2009, 223 persons were convicted of rape, according to the Supreme Court’s research center. However, NGOs alleged that many rapes were not reported and claimed that police and judicial procedures were stressful to victims and tended to discourage reporting of the crime. Social stigma also lowered the number of cases reported.

According to NGOs, police referred only a minority of rape cases for prosecution, largely claiming that there was insufficient evidence. Post rape medical examinations were available, and results were occasionally used as evidence; however, such exams were not always available in remote areas. NGOs stated that negative attitudes among some police resulted in some cases not being referred to prosecutors.

Domestic violence also remained a serious problem, particularly against women of low-income rural families. The law requires police to accept and file complaints, visit the site of incidents, interrogate offenders and witnesses, impose administrative criminal penalties, and bring victims to refuge. It also provides for sanctions against offenders, including expulsion from the home, prohibitions on the use of joint property, prohibitions on meeting victims and on access to minors, and compulsory training aimed at behaviour modification.

However, this level of service was rarely provided because the police lacked sufficient funding and, according to women’s NGOs, often was reluctant to intervene in what was viewed as an internal family matter. At year’s end only 20 cases had been tried under the 2004 law. On December 24, the government established a care facility for domestic violence and rape victims in the National Center for Trauma Treatment.

There were no reliable statistics regarding the extent of domestic abuse; however, the National Center Against Violence (NCAV) estimated in 2007 that one in three women was subject to some form of domestic violence, and one in 10 women was battered. Seven persons were convicted of domestic violence and given restraining orders during the year.

Sex exploitation is also a major issue in Mongolia. The overall infrequency of police raids has allowed brothels to operate de facto in the country and vulnerable women still ran the risk of being the object of sex trade; an unknown number of them were trafficked in 2009. According to women’s NGOs, sex tourism from South Korea and Japan remained a problem and some estimate to 3,000 to 5,000 Mongolians are trafficked every year; the vast majority are women and children recruited by deceit to work in the sex industry.

“Trafficking is growing very fast,” says Amgalan Erdenechuluun, a project officer at the Human Security Policy Studies Center, an NGO in Ulan Bator. According to the U.S. State Department’s 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report, released in June, Mongolian trafficking victims have been found in a growing number of countries as far reaching as Germany, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and more. And an increasing cohort of Mongolian women are entering into arranged marriages with foreigners – mostly South Koreans – but end up in situations of involuntary servitude.

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