A man has been sentenced to surgical castration for the rape of a child in 2024 in Madagascar, according to a judicial official. The sentence marks the first of its kind in the Indian Ocean island.
On Thursday, July 10, 2025, the attorney general at the Court of Appeal, Didier Razafindralamb, said the case arose from the rape and attempted murder of a six-year-old girl in Imerintsiatosika, a municipality 30 km west of the capital, Antananarivo.
In a video released by the Ministry of Justice, the attorney general said, “The person prosecuted in this case was sentenced by the court to life imprisonment with hard labour, accompanied by castration.”
The punishment was implemented last year as part of a 2024 law in Madagascar that addresses rapes of youngsters aged 10 and under. The administration stated that the courts documented numerous similar cases, prompting the enactment of the law.
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Razafindralambo said, “Today’s decision is a strong and significant response from the justice system, intended also to serve as a warning to anyone with similar malicious intentions.”
Though this case is the first in Madagascar, surgical castration is entirely new. In Germany and the Czech Republic, some sex offenders had been through surgical castration with the consent of the defendant. For some sex crimes against kids, Louisiana was the first state in the United States to require the process last year.
Chemical castration, which is reversible and performed through the administration of medications, has been implemented as a punishment for sex crimes in numerous states in the United States as well as Poland and South Korea. Britain is considering requiring its use.
Human rights organizations say that these techniques are unethical and that efforts should be directed toward encouraging survivors of abuse to come out, protecting them from reprisal, and expanding prevention efforts.
