NICOSIA, July 28, 2008 (AFP) - Traumatised by sexual assaults which began when she was eight and became full rape when she was 11, the young girl finally saw her stepfather jailed by a court in the Greek Cypriot side of Cyprus.

But on an appeal this year, the Supreme Court halved the rapist's sentence -- a judgement that has outraged families, psychiatrists and the Mediterranean island's children's rights commissioner.

The court's rationale? That the girl's lawyers failed to prove she did not consent to the sex perpetrated on her by her stepfather.

'You cannot talk about the notion of consent in relation to the rape of an 11-year-old girl. It is devastating and completely unacceptable,' health education researcher Martha Apostolidou said.

She told AFP that the issue of consent was a false one in a country where the legal age of sexual consent is 17.

The ruling by the island's highest court has ignited fierce debate, with critics charging the court with trampling the youngster's rights and undermining legislation designed to outlaw child sex abuse.

The Supreme Court halved the 10-year sentence passed earlier by a lower court, saying the 'absence of consent' had not been proved.

The judgement ruled that the child had failed specifically to reject her stepfather's advances and the lack of consent had not been proved, although it conceded 'she secretly did not really understand it.'

'The complainant maintained in court that she had become completely trapped by this habit of behaviour and that it was something from which she could not escape,' the judgement said.

The issue received huge media coverage with the island's attorney general, or chief prosecutor, taking the unusual step of allowing his opposition to the ruling to be publicly known.

Independent children's rights commissioner Leda Koursoumba angrily denounced the judgement as a breach of the international convention on the rights of the child which stipulates that the youngster's interests must be the top priority.

'It is totally unacceptable; disgusting. There is no excuse,' Koursoumba said. 'It is a decision that upsets me and that raises a lot of questions. It gives society the notion that such action can be tolerated.'

Despite the complexity of the case, the judges delivered their verdict immediately after the hearing, without retiring into private session to deliberate, triggering accusations from the victim's family that the ruling was rushed.

The Supreme Court sparked further controversy on June 9 when it overturned the conviction of a man charged with abusing his niece over a two year period starting when she was 11, due to inconsistencies in the child's evidence.

-- Child sexual abuse supposedly did not happen in Cyprus --

The judges also criticised the two-year interval between the attacks ending and the victim alerting police, despite testimony from child abuse experts who said victims often delay reporting their abuse due to shame or fear.

'I feel that in the Supreme Court decisions, there is not the level of sensitivity to children's issues and sexual abuse that I would like to see in our courts,' child psychologist and MP Stella Kyriakidou told AFP.

She said that Cyprus has been struggling to acknowledge and tackle the issue of sexual abuse and feared that judgements such as these undermined the progress being made.

'Sexual abuse was something that we had a huge problem dealing with. It was something that supposedly did not happen in family-oriented societies like Cyprus. It was a great taboo,' she said.

'When you have court decisions which start to question principles that you have tried to lay down for the last 10 to 15 years, this is a concern.

'If a child, family, parent or teacher feels that in court, 'I am going to end up being called an unreliable witness,' then we are going to go backwards, and this is why I am very concerned.

'If we make rushed court decisions about child abuse, which I think is one of the most serious issues we have to face in our legal system, then this is a cause for double concern.'

Senior legal counsel at the prosecutor's office Eleni Loizidou, maintained Cyprus has one of the best legal frameworks in Europe to combat domestic violence, combining both punishment for offenders and protection of victims.

At the forefront of the fight is the 1994 Violence in the Family law, which has increased sentences for sex offenders and gives special powers to the court to remove victims or suspected attackers from the family home.

After the March judgement, Koursoumba announced plans for a national strategy against child sexual abuse, starting with the creation of a central database to establish the extent of the problem, as statistics on the issue are scarce.

A 2005 study of 913 young people aged 12 to 18 found that 9.9 percent had experienced sexual violence, with three-quarters saying they had never reported the attacks, report author Apostolidou said.

'We should educate judges to make them more sensitive. We need better educated people in the courts. Judges need to be more sensitive about domestic violence. Why train social workers and not the legal body?' she said.

Supreme Court President Christos Artemides refused to comment on the judgements.

He said in a written statement to AFP that the court takes 'no notice' of 'anybody or group... whose views may be contrary to the principles, established and recognised in democratic countries regarding the rights of an accused person in a criminal trial.'