OPD Raises Alarm Over Rising Child Rape Cases

The Lagos State Office of the Public Defender, OPD, has raised an alarm over the rising cases of child rape, defilement and abuse in the state, promising that the government was ready to nip this in the bud.

OPD Director, Mrs. Omotola Rotimi disclosed this yesterday at a news conference at the office’s premises in Surulere, Lagos, southwest Nigeria, lamenting that in recent times, several child abuse cases had been reported.

She said there had been cases of men raping young girls and fathers doing the same to their daughters, adding that such acts are crimes and the OPD was ready to prosecute offenders in court.

“The essence of this press conference is to alert parents, especially mothers, on the need to be more vigilant about their children and wards; this became necessary due to increase in number of cases of child abuse.

“It is becoming almost a daily occurrence now, as we receive cases of defilement of children whose age is as low as 18 months old by people who sometimes are very close to the family of the child,” she stated.

According to her, between January 2012 and now, about 17 children between the ages of 11 and below had been defiled while 15 children between the ages of 12 and above had been raped. Seven children were physically abused by their parents.

“Apart from defilement, another major case we receive regularly is that of child abuse by either the parents themselves or sometimes by their supposed aunt or uncle,” she said, adding that a mother was sentenced to six months imprisonment last month for abusing her son with a razor blade.

Rotimi disclosed that the OPD had established a Special Victims Unit, SVU, where abused children relax to give details of their ordeals to OPD officers to help in prosecuting their cases.

“At the unit, we collect their information in a conducive manner instead of in hostility environment. We have tested it and it had worked. This unit is just to keep the abused children in a relax manner; that is what the law expects,” she stated.

She added that the mission of the OPD was for everyone irrespective of means to have equal access to justice by safeguarding the fundamental human rights and freedom of the vulnerable and the disadvantaged group in the society.

—Kazeem Ugbodaga