Police authorities in Magwi County of Eastern Equatoria State said they are holding a person with both male and female reproductive organs on suspicion of raping a female teenager in Obbo Payam last week.
Josephine Ogwiti, an 18-year-old hermaphrodite, is accused of raping a 15-year-old girl.
The Magwi County Police Inspector, Lieutenant Bongomin Godfrey Dorteo, said the accused was arrested on rape charges because defilement does not exist in the books.
“We got to understand that ‘she’ (Ogwiti) had a sexual relationship with an underage lady. That is when she was arrested because of a rape case. The case is under rape but is defilement. We have nothing to do with the (Bodily) changes that she had. What we know is she is here because of rape and we are going to work on a rape case,” Lt. Bongomin said.
He added: “We still need to summon the parents to appear at the police station and then we ask their opinion. We don’t say it is a rape case, it is actually what we call defilement, it is defilement because they communicated in good faith, and in the end, they acted. Because it is an underage which is defilement and since there is no defilement case here, then we generalize it as rape.”
Michael Obany, the uncle to the accused Josephine Ogwiti, vehemently refuted the rape claims and said the two had a mutual agreement.
“No, no, no. That is not rape, it is an agreement between the lady and Ogwiti. This boy was born a hermaphrodite and as he grew and became mature, the hormones also grew. The parents sat down and talked and they said the girl is underage. Probably Ogwiti was born in 2004 and the lady (defiled) claims she is 15 years old,” Obany said.
The Magwi County executive director, Ocheng David Tokwaro, confirmed the transfer of the suspect from Obbo to Magwi Police Station and described the incident as an alleged rape case.
“That incident happened in Obbo, not in Magwi. We transferred (the case) from Obbo to Magwi but you know scientifically human beings can change. Maybe that child was born like that, sometimes human beings can be deformed in a way that they can appear like a lady, they can appear like men,” Tokwaro explained. “But it is alleged to be a rape case now because from a female it turned to be a male and had an affair with a female. So, it is now a rape case that is why he has been arrested, because that child has two organs, two in one. I am not a person from Judiciary and I don’t know which organ he has been using now. It is the police to detect or medical personnel.”
Dr. Thomas Changa Oker, a medical officer at Torit State Hospital, describes the case as rare in humans but common in animals.
“This is very unique in fact. We do usually hear about hermaphrodites especially in animals but not in humans. For humans, someone may have both organs, both male and female organs, but it could be internal due to hormonal influence but the physical appearance of somebody having both organs is very rare and an abnormal thing,” Dr. Changa said.
According to ‘her’ parents, Josephine Ogwiti was born in Changwali Refugee Camp in 2004 and seemed to be a girl till about the age of seven when they discovered she had both male and female reproductive organs.