A minor girl from Chisinau had been raped by the father of a classmate of her during several months. Recently, the 35-year-old culprit was sentenced to 12 years in jail, IPN reports, quoting the Prosecutor General’s Office.

In October 2013 – March 2014, the offender had forced the girl to have sex with him on the pretext of an inexistent debt to him. Later, by threating her that he will tell her parents about what happen, the man called the victim to rented apartments, where he raped her.

Last March, the girl told everything to her parents, who filed a complaint to the police. The same day the man was arrested. He was sentenced to 12 years behind bars and will serve his sentence in a closed prison. The court also ordered that he pay 50,550 lei damages to the injured party. The sentence is not yet definitive.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the number of children who become victims of sexual abuse, including in the family, is on the rise. In 2014, there were examined 223 criminal cases involving children as victims of sexual assault, as opposed to 166 cases in 2013. In 44 of the cases, the children were sexually abused in the family, by the biological father (14 cases), the mother’s partner (16) or other relatives (14).