Rape cases involving minors and the elderly have been on the increase. Amnesty International, the human rights community and lawyers believe the security agencies are not doing enough to stop the trend.
They are just 13, innocent and largely unaware of the danger of being with a man in a secluded environment. They paid dearly for their innocence. There was a pin-drop silence when their August 5 experience was narrated before an
Ejigbo Magistrate’s Court.
The predator was a 39-year- old printer, Oluseye Israel, who is standing trial for allegedly raping the two minors. Israel is the neighbour of one of them and the other minor was visiting.
The court heard how he lured them into his room around 4pm, at Ododo Ayika Street, Egan, on the outskirts of Lagos on the pretence that they were to run an errand for him.
One of the victims said: “Immediately, we entered his room, he locked the door, pulled off his clothes and was naked. He ordered us to do so and when we refused and tried to shout, he threatened to kill us if we make noise and failed to comply.”
Isreal allegedly tore the underwear of one of the minors and threw her on his bed.
“This now made us to comply with him,” she said.
The minors told their parents and the matter was reported at Igando Police Station. Thus began his journey to the Magistrate’s Court, where his fate is to be determined by Magistrate M.B. Folami.
He appeared again in court on August 17 from the Kirikiri Prisons.
A lawyer’s son, Ikechukwu Eke, 35, is also cooling his heels at the Kirikiri Prisons. His alleged offence: raping a 10-year-old.
The Ejigbo Magistrate’s Court heard how he allegedly defiled the minor, who is his friend’s daughter twice.
The victim’s father, who was said to be critically ill and needed financial assistance, sent his daughter to the defendant.
The minor, who narrated what happened, said: “When I delivered the message, he asked me to close my eyes and he carried me and put me on his bed..”
The minor said he did it and warned her not to tell anybody about it, otherwise she would die.
The victim’s mother, Grace Nurudeen, discovered she had been defiled while bathing her.
Grace, who is separated from the victim’s father and married to another man, told the court: “I asked her who did it and she said that it was Ikechukwu who defiled her. So, I took her to Igando Police Station and reported the matter after which Ikechukwu was arrested.”
Another minor was also defiled by a 43-year-old man last month. He has been arraigned before a Yaba Magistrate’s Court for allegedly assaulting the 17-year-old girl sexually.
Felix Adedayo, a resident of Adisatu Close, Orile-Iganmu, Lagos mainland, said the prosecutor, Inspector Godwin Anyanwu, is a bus driver, who beckoned on the victim while she was hawking agidi and pepper soup at Oyingbo Motor Park, on July 30, about 7:15pm.
Anyanwu said: “The defendant told the girl to give him a plate of the meal. As the girl put down the tray from her head, the accused asked her to draw closer to the rare of the bus but she refused. The girl had started packing her items back into the tray since she noticed what the accused was up to but he quickly raped the helpless girl.”
Hardly does a day pass without minors and adults falling prey to men with uncontrollable sexual urge.
Rape is an offence under Section 357 of the Criminal Code Law. It says: “Any person who has unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman or girl, without her consent, or with her consent, if consent was obtained by force or by means of threat or intimidation of any kind, or by fear or harm, or by any means of false and fraudulent representation as to the nature of the act, or in the case of a married woman, by personating her husband is guilty of an offence called rape.”
The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (“CEDAW”), ratified by Nigeria, was designed to put an end to all types of violence against women, including rape.
Section 358 of the law specifies punishment for perpetrators of the crime which ranges from five years, 21 years or even life imprisonment as the case may be.
But, many offenders go unpunished, leaving the victims shattered.
However, the law, which seems to have provided protection for rape victims, mandated the victims to prove beyond reasonable doubts that there was no consent and to also show corroboration, which is a witness to the crime.
Analysts believe this goes contrary to the laws in other countries that allow offenders to claim the defence of consent and bear the burden of proving that the victim consented. Worries have been raised on corroboration, bearing in mind that rape is not committed in the open.
A report by Amnesty International noted: “Rape of women and girls by both the police and security forces, and within their homes and community, is acknowledged to be endemic in Nigeria, not only by human rights defenders but also by some government officials at both federal and state levels.
“The perpetrators invariably escape punishment, and women and girls who have been raped are denied any form of redress for the serious crimes against them.
“Government’s response has been, and continues to be, woefully inadequate. Rape is a crime under Nigerian Criminal Code and is an internationally recognised human rights violation.
“Despite this, the government is failing in both its national and international obligations to prevent, investigate and prosecute rape, whether committed by state actors or non-state actors, and to provide any reparations to the victims,” the report stated.
A group, the Delta Women, stated that prosecuting rapists is an extremely challenging task. Respondents in its survey believed rapists should be severely punished.
The group said: “In some instances, participants suggested rapists should be incarcerated for extended periods of time, and some even advocated for castration of the perpetrators. However, despite the demand for punishment, laws continue to turn a blind eye to rape in Nigeria.”
A professor of Law, Professor Taiwo Osipitan, said teenage rape is rising because rapists find teenagers attractive and vulnerable.
Osipitan said: “Some teenagers dress provocatively. Some rapists are unable to resist temptation when they see teenagers in those provocative dresses. Teenagers love adventure. Some of them are found in places they should not be at very odd times.
“The problem with rape is not the absence of effective punishment against offenders but with stigma associated with being a victim of rape.
“There is the need to protect identities of victims of rape right from investigation through prosecution stages.”
A constitutional lawyer, Chief Niyi Akintola, said the laws are adequate but the problem is with enforcement.
Akintola said: “Existing laws are adequate but the will to implement and prosecute offenders has always been a problem. Punishment for rape ranges from life imprisonment to 21 years but as a result of the discretion given trial courts, most times the judges or magistrates maneuver the situation and award lesser punishments to offenders.
“Another problem is the unwillingness on the part of victims to come forward and report cases of rape as a result of the societal stigma associated with it. There is the tendency of isolation of the victim by the opposite sex.”
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria
(SAN), Dele Belgore, said in as
much as the laws are far from being perfect, the surge in rape cases was as a result of societal and institutional failures.
He said: “That incidences of teenage rape are on the rise in our country should not surprise anybody. Rape is a serious violation of the person. It is a heinous crime that is on the same scale as homicide.
“Our condemnation of it must be total. Having said that, I don’t think that our laws are inadequate and a change in law will necessarily stem the rising tide of rape incidences. The increase in rape incidences is a sad reflection of the state of the nation.
“Institutions and morality in our society are abysmally on the decline. Added to this is the fact that rape is a particularly difficult crime to police and punish.
“I read somewhere that a vast majority of rapes are committed by people who are well known to their victims. So the victim naturally is reluctant to report the rape and also she wants to protect her own identity.
“Weighin also the ineptitude of our law enforcement mechanisms which creates a situation whereby there is a far greater chance of getting away with a crime than getting caught and punished.
“So, what we are seeing are societal and institutional failures and not a failure of our laws, which I must say are themselves far from perfect.
“The problem is more sociological and economic than legal. Where institutions are weak and youths are unemployed, idle minds will commit crimes. The law only focuses on the crime. It does not address the causes of the crime. That function belongs to the government and, sadly, it hasn’t covered itself with any glory in that respect.”
To rights activist and lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), the rising wave of rape of minors is very disturbing.
He said: “It is so traumatising for parents and the victims. Like those who rape very old women, the defilement of minors is based on a superstitious belief that those who perpetrate such atrocities are going to become instant millionaires or acquire political power.
“Whatever may be the motivation of the devilish people the government and all men and women of goodwill must rise up to fight and eradicate the dangerous trend.
“The Nigerian Bar Association and human rights bodies should take up cases of rape and insist on the prosecution of rape suspects.
“Through education and enlightenment, the society should stop stigmatising rape victims. Parents and guardians must be vigilant and report teachers, pastors and even law enforcement officials who rape their daughters and wards.
“On no ground should such serious crimes be compromised and settled without a full trial.”
In Falana’s view, the police hardly press charges against rape suspects.
Calling on the termination of corroboration as proof of rape, he said that “the judge made rule which requires corroboration has, over the years, encouraged the crime.”
He said: “In the case of the State vs Gabriel Akingbade and many others, accused persons who were proved to have committed rape were discharged and acquitted due to lack of corroboration.
“The requirement is so unjust and unfair to victims as rape is never committed in the open. With medical evidence to prove penetration, there is no rational basis for the evidence of eye witnesses.
“Happily, the requirement of corroboration to prove cases of rape has been declared discriminatory and unconstitutional by the Court of Appeal of Kenya in the famous case of Mugungu vs The Republic.
“In that case, the court rightly found that the rule of corroboration was based on the notion that women and girls might fabricate stories of rape. As corroboration is not required in male related offences, the court rightly struck down the rule.
“It is hoped that Nigerian judges will, like their Kenyan counterparts, jettison the requirement of corroboration to prove cases of rape. This should be done urgently to pave the way for the successful prosecution of rape cases.”
Another SAN, Mr. Norrison Quakers, said although some have suggested that rape be made a capital offence to stem the tide, the problem is not the dearth of legislation or that the sanction is not stiff enough.
He said: “As a society and as a people, we must rekindle and strengthen our values and moral fabric. Indecent and provocative dressing is actually an offence, our law enforcement agencies must live up to their statutory and constitutional duties in terms of enforcement. Families must also rise up to the occasion by ensuring that their ward or children are morally conscious and upright.”
Founder, Women Empower
ment and Legal Aid (WELA),
Mrs. Funmi Falana, said one reason for the rise in rape cases is the technicalities involved and the procedures in the trial of rapists.
She said: “There is this requirement of the law that you need corroboration of the evidence of the victim. In other words, there must be a witness that would come to corroborate that it is true that the victim was raped by the alleged offender before a court can rely on the evidence of the victim, as if a rape case is a dinner party that you would invite a witness to come and attend. “Since these things are done in secrecy, there is no way you would always get people to come and witness it.
“Secondly, there is this requirement that you would need to do a medical examination of the private part of the victim immediately after the incident and the medical record will also be part of the trial and the evidence in court.
“Without these, there is no way the case will succeed. Most of these evidence are collated by the police and our police are so corrupt that immediately someone gets their way through the police, exhibits will disappear.”
Using a case of a seven year old girl who was raped by her stepfather as an example, Mrs. Falana said the police took seven evidence from a seven-year-old girl.
She said: “There is no way a seven- year-old girl would be asked questions by different people seven times that her story will not change. The basis of telling her story repeatedly is to bring in conflicting testimony.
“Based on that, the DPP said there was no case to answer. When the police were going to file their report, they filed all the seven reports. You will see the carelessness of the police and the corruption there, just because the victim does not know them.”
“Again, the delay in the administration of justice for a trial in court also makes it easy for a suspect to get away. Now it has become habitual because it is always difficult to get a conviction.
“Two, there is this stupid idea brought from South Africa, not in Nigeria alone, and we the Women Organisations in Nigeria, we have been trying to campaign against it, that when they have sexual relation with a virgin, they will be cured of HIV.
“These are misdirection and mis-education that are going through the minds of the illiterate men that make them to abuse the innocent girls around.
“The thing is becoming rampant. Then three, all of them want to use it to cure their ailment, for something like HIV. Then some also do it for ritual purposes. There is no way a seven-year-old-girl will know a man that wants to sexually harass her in order to cure himself. This is what we have been campaigning to them about.”
She also pointed out that the government and the entire society have not been able to protect the women folk, especially the girl-child who are very vulnerable.
Mrs. Falana said the existing laws are unjust and discriminatory, especially in demanding that rape victims should corroborate the evidence when the crime is not committed in the open. “Moreover, the woman’s private part must be examined and the medical report submitted but the man’s private part will not be examined. This is discrimination.
“The society does not help the case. In all these things, the girl will be ashamed to come out and say it. This is because they feel that if the society heard of it, they would not be able to get a husband. But beyond that, the penalty of five years, I think, is adequate but the government should make conviction of rapist possible.
“What we should do is to remove the technicalities, like the requirement for corroboration and the examination of the private part and other things. These are things I think should be removed to make conviction easier.
“I believe death penalty contradicts the right to life. In most countries, they have been removing death penalty from their penal laws. We are also trying to campaign against death penalty, even in Nigeria. Castration will also be against their right to dignity, which I think is also a constitutional right to life.
“ The government should begin a massive campaign in the media to re-orient Nigerian men against rape, and to debunk the misconception of using virgins to cure HIV. Rapists are animals.”
Another lawyer, Mr. Mohammed Fawehinmi, believes the surge is as a result of inadequate educational policies.
He said: “The laws are adequate; it is societal decay and lack of proper education that have led to the increase in teenage rape. Our youths are not engaged; people are using awkward methods just to survive and satisfy their urges. It all boils down to the failure of governance. There are no infrastructures for youths to grow, people are idle and most young men are engaged in illicit activities, they tend to be vindictive.”
-The Nation
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