A court in Madagascar has sentenced a man to surgical castration for the rape of a child in 2024, a judicial official said, the first time such a sentence has been imposed in the country.

The man was convicted of the rape and attempted murder of a 6-year-old girl in a community 30 kilometers from Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital, the prosecutor general of the appeals court where the case was heard explained.

“The person accused in this case was sentenced by the court to life imprisonment with hard labour and castration,” he added in a statement shared with the media by the justice ministry.

“Today’s decision is a strong and important response from the judicial system that is also intended to serve as a warning to anyone with similar malicious intentions,” the attorney general said.

The penalty of surgical castration in Madagascar and other parts of the world

The penalty of castration was adopted last year in Madagascar as part of a law concerning the rape of minors aged 10 and under. The government explained that it introduced the law because many such cases have been recorded by the courts.

Surgical castration is practiced as a punishment for some sex crimes in the Czech Republic and Germany, with the consent of the convicted person. Louisiana last year became the first state in the US to provide this punishment for perpetrators of some sex crimes involving juvenile victims.

Chemical castration, which is done by administering drugs and can be reversed, has been adopted as a punishment for sexual crimes in many US states, as well as in countries such as Poland and South Korea. Britain is also considering adopting it.