As the whole world grapples with the devastating social and economic effects of the Coronavirus, Nigeria faces quite more; sexual violence against women and the girl child.

According to the Inspector -General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, Nigeria records a surge in cases of rape in the past five months. These were reported to triple the rate of occurrences and are not unconnected to the lockdown, as children and students are still out of school to curb transmission of COVID-19.

This needs to stop immediately. Adequate protection, implementation of existing laws, and a quickened investigation into rape cases are urgent to save the women and children of the disaster.

Rape and murder of ladies during the lockdown.

Rape is not uncommon in Nigeria. But in the past month alone, the spate included attacks and gruesome murder of victims. The cold-blooded murder of a 22-year-old Uwa Veronica inside the church sparked outrage in Benin and across the nation. Barely a week after, a teenage student, Barakat Bello suffered a similar fate. The trend eventually evolved into almost a dozen in a row.

Although quite a lot of Nigerians took to the streets to protest and even Amnesty International has called on the government to declare it a national crisis, Nigeria needs a critical implementation of existing laws and a change of attitude towards child abuse and sexual violence.

Without such understanding, the nation could be on the path to becoming extremely unfriendly and inhabitable for women and children. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported in 2015 that 6 out of every 10 Nigerian children experience some form of violence. One in four girls and one in every 10 boys are victims of sexual violence.

According to the report, Nigeria has the largest number of child brides in Africa with more than 23 million girls and women married as children, most of them from poor and rural communities. This anomaly is firmly rooted in ignorance, obnoxious cultural belief, fetishism, weak legislation, and policy implementation.

What may however arise from this trend alongside serious psychological problems for the victims, is a population of mentally unstable girls and women for Nigeria. There is also a possibility of the socio-cultural menace of an increase in the suicide rate. It is known that victims of sexual violence are prone to suicide and quite a number of them commit suicide. It may also give rise to unwanted pregnancies that may worsen the deplorable out-of-school children's statistics and pose serious security problems for the nation.

Rape is neither cultural nor a show of strength

Although rape and sexual violence is a global phenomenon, it should be totally discarded to be cultural. Barring extreme tendencies on the part of armies and community warriors (which is nonetheless ignoble and ugly) during wars, no religion or culture encourages assault. It is basically a bad orientation of culture and a wobble sense of justice that makes people think 'men would always be men' to play up the vulnerability of women to sheer dominance (which the world has ratified) of men. Many Nigerian tribes still don't value girls like boys as they believe they are to serve men all their life.

This line of thoughts on sexual violence is summarized by the United Nations Women as rape culture. How could this culture be disrupted?

First, what must be done is an improved awareness outreach on every form of abuse against women and children including child marriage and female genital mutilation.

Second, governments at all levels should quit writing ordinary press releases and lead from the front.

Also, there should be a scale-up in the level of sex education across the country. Nigerian parents must begin to teach wards, males especially, morals about the beauty in caring for and protecting the girl-child, though they are not free from abuse too.

In addition, religious and community leaders should be partnered in spreading the message against obnoxious culture and belief endangering children and women as some of these acts are fetishistic. What should be an everyday discourse and not a one-time thing is that: all forms of sexual assault and violence are ungodly and inhumane. They are not to be seen as cultural or a measure of power.

Photo Credits: Jekein Lato-Unah for Vice

Justice delayed is justice denied

Justice for rape victims is abysmally low globally, but it is almost impossible in Nigeria.

According to Abuja-based human rights defender and constitutional lawyer, only 22 convictions of rape are recorded in the history of the Nigerian judiciary. However, the International Centre for Investigative Reporting fact-checked a similar claim last year and came up with a figure of 65 between 1973 and 2019. Whereas there is no comprehensive record of sexual offenders in Nigeria, it is safe to say less than 10% of victims get justice. The reasons are not far-fetched. There is a palpable lack of trust in a corrupt and unmotivated police force. It is about time we had Sexual Abuse Register (SAR) in each state to keep data of cases and prosecutions.

There are sad claims of extortion and often an unholy alliance with the alleged powerful rapists which does more aiding and abetting of crime than curbing it. This, coupled with a weak judiciary, makes justice almost impossible to get. It definitely bears in the figure of 799 suspects arrested for 717 cases in the last five months with just 631 of them reportedly investigated but with no conviction yet. To change this narrative, authorities should strengthen the law enforcement agencies to do better with investigations, and the judiciary must be empowered for a quicker prosecution of cases.

No to castration, existing laws should be implemented

While quite a number of Nigerians including the President of the Senate Ahmad Lawal call for new legislation and stiffer measures, what the nation needs is far from it. There exist enough legal provisions that provide access to justice for sexual violence victims. These include the Penal code, Criminal code, and Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act, (VAPP) with ranging terms of punishment. It is right that the House of Representatives rejected the demand for castration measure, it couldn't have done better at combating it.

What is grossly lacking is the implementation and domestication of the existing legislation. For instance, only 14 Nigerian states have domesticated the much-acclaimed VAPP Act since 2015. This largely reflects the general culture of neglect, ill- advocacy, and preparation until another ugly incident. Parents, the media, civic groups, and other stakeholders should rather call on each state to do the needful as well as pressurize the authorities to rein in on defaulting law enforcement agencies, and eliminate archaic judiciary protocols which slow down prosecution of rape cases.

Whereas the nation claims to work towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, these statistics clearly negate goals 5 and 6. The larger implication is the underutilization of women's social and economic potential for national growth and development. Therefore on all fronts, critical efforts must be geared towards making life safer and better for women and children.