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Page8 <strong>The</strong><strong>Trumpet</strong> DECEMBER 1 - <strong>14</strong> <strong>2021</strong><br />
News<br />
Nigeria’s endemic rape crisis<br />
Continued from Page 2<<br />
imposed to tackle the spread of<br />
Covid-19 in 2020, there was an<br />
upsurge in cases of rape. In June<br />
2020, Nigerian police said they had<br />
recorded 717 incidents of rape<br />
between January and May last year.<br />
In April 2020, Nigeria’s Minister of<br />
Women Affairs Pauline Tallen said<br />
at least 3,600 cases of rape were<br />
recorded during the lockdown,<br />
while the National Human Rights<br />
Commission (NHRC) received<br />
11,200 reported cases of rape over<br />
the whole of 2020.<br />
As reports of rape escalated<br />
across Nigeria, State Governors<br />
declared a “state of emergency” on<br />
rape and gender-based violence in<br />
June 2020. <strong>The</strong>y also promised to<br />
set up a sex offenders register. But<br />
over a year since their declaration,<br />
nothing has changed, as more cases<br />
of rape have been reported.<br />
One victim, Vera Uwaila<br />
Omosuwa, a 22-year-old<br />
microbiology student, was raped<br />
and brutally assaulted in 2020 in a<br />
church near her home in Benin, Edo<br />
state, and died a couple of days later<br />
from her injuries. Hamira, a fiveyear-old,<br />
was drugged and raped by<br />
her neighbour in April 2020. Her<br />
injuries were so bad she could no<br />
longer control her bladder.<br />
Barakat Bello, an 18-year-old<br />
student, was raped during a robbery<br />
in her home in Ibadan, Oyo State.<br />
She was butchered with machetes<br />
by her rapists and died on 1 June<br />
2020. Favour Okechukwu, an 11-<br />
year-old girl, was gang-raped to<br />
death in Ejigbo, Lagos State. A 70-<br />
year-old woman was raped in Ogun<br />
State. In May <strong>2021</strong>, a six-year-old<br />
girl was raped to death in Kaduna<br />
State.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Covid-19 pandemic only<br />
exposed what has been going on<br />
for so long. Not only are women<br />
and girls being raped in Nigeria,<br />
but when they are brave enough to<br />
come forward they are being<br />
dismissed by police officers as<br />
liars and attention-seekers – slurs<br />
which inflict further injury,” said<br />
Osai Ojigho.<br />
Outdated laws and law<br />
enforcement failures<br />
Despite Nigeria’s international<br />
human rights obligation to enact,<br />
implement and monitor legislations<br />
addressing all forms of violence<br />
against women, women and girls<br />
continue to face discrimination in<br />
law and practice.<br />
<strong>The</strong> definition of rape under the<br />
Criminal Code, which is applicable<br />
in the southern part of Nigeria, and<br />
the Penal Code, which is applicable<br />
in northern Nigeria, are both<br />
outdated. <strong>The</strong> Violence Against<br />
Persons Prohibition Act expanded<br />
the scope and definition of rape but<br />
was silent on consent.<br />
“Notwithstanding expanding the<br />
legal scope of the definition of rape<br />
the Violence Against Persons<br />
Prohibition Act and other laws have<br />
limited jurisdiction. Even in States<br />
where the Act and other laws have<br />
been domesticated, there has been<br />
no enforcement or implementation,”<br />
said Osai Ojigho.<br />
Survivors and NGOs interviewed<br />
for this research said stigma and<br />
Continued on Page 9
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