Endangered species …story of raped kids

*Why victims hardly get justice 

 With rising spates of child rapes and sexual violence against minors being perpetuated by members of the family and neighbours alike, a bleak future awaits many young girls in the face of compromising cultural practices and a criminal justice system that is too defective to right the wrongs and serve justice expeditiously reports Muritala Ayinla

As she walked briskly into the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre, Lagos, it was obvious she was in a hurry to pour her mind out. Despite putting up great efforts at mustering up courage to share her plight in the secluded office, wrinkles of anger laced with exasperation were as clear as crystal all over her as she took her seat. However, as Wumi, a mother of two, started narrating her tales of woes and neglect, she lost the battle to hold back her tears. She sobbed almost endless, as she continually punctuated her conversation with tears.

She had enough reasons to be dejected. Besides suffering the nightmare of having her 9-year-old daughter raped by her own neighbour, all efforts to get justice seem to be hitting the brick wall, leaving her feeling cheated, hopeless and unprotected. Her journey to unhappiness began 2 years ago when a neighbour called Mayowa defiled her innocent girl in their face-me-I-face-you apartment at Iyana-Oworo area of Lagos. This took place just 3 rooms away from hers. Rather than get justice, it became the case of the proverbial hunter becoming the hunted. For daring to raise alarm and cry for redress, Wumi was subsequently framed up and detained in the police custody with her two children, including the defiled girl.

“I got to know around 2am when my daughter had slept off. I saw semen dripping in her private part. I was shocked. I watched closely again, and I discovered her private part was also unusually reddish with some semen still dripping. I was nervous and couldn’t sleep again.

“After I inquired from her, she confessed that Uncle Mayowa, our neighbour, did that to her. She told me that after she returned from the errand which the uncle sent her, he shut the door and pushed her to the bed and he immediately used pillow to cover her mouth. She said she cried but her cries for help went unnoticed. Her pleas never appealed to Mayowa, who was bent at violating her. I watched with awe and consternation as my daughter vividly narrated how Uncle Mayowa raped her and threatened to kill her and me if she dared tell anyone what happened,” the 31-year-old mother said, bursting into uncontrollable tears that left her eyes turn red.

At this point, Wumi was unable to speak again, sobbing hysterically for nearly 20 minutes. The thought of how Mayowa and his family, friends as well as their landlord molested and ridiculed her after the accused was arrested, detained and promptly released by the police triggered her exasperation. “After the randy man was released, he would come to my door step and threatened to kill me and my kids. Efforts were made by Mayowa’s family and one Kayode, who claimed to be his lawyer, to persuade me to discontinue the case. The lawyer and his family repeatedly brought N100,000 which I  refused. My refusal fuelled their anger.

“It was sad that my landlord joined in the accusation and threatened to evict me, saying how would everyone beg me and I refused? Eventually, he evicted me from the house over the matter,” she said amid tears.

Again, Wumi couldn’t hold back tears. She paused for about 12 minutes before mustering the courage to speak again. “I later left the area when I felt unsafe and became the cynosure of all eyes and subject of ridicule in our area. Prior to that, my daughter too had become the subject of discussion everywhere – in the school, at home and on the streets. Anytime we go out, people pointed at us, discussing the rape saga. That was one of the reasons I left the area and relocated my daughter to Ilorin, Kwara State, to save her from embarrassment and stigmatisation,” she said. Now a single parent, Wumi, who has been rendered homeless following the sexual offence against her daughter which took place in 2014, is unhappy that Mayowa still walks freely in Iyana-oworo while her life and that of her daughter have been punctured with the incident. No thanks to frequent adjournments, Wumi and her daughter are on long walk to justice since the matter became a court issue in 2014.

But if the fate that befell Wumi and her innocent girl was bad and reprehensible, what has happened to Mrs Kaosara Ogundipe, 35, was downright criminal and completely blood-curdling. After waiting for nine years to reap the fruit of the womb, she was the happiest woman on earth when she eventually became a mother in 2014. So, on the 24th August 2014, she rolled out the drums in celebration of the end of her bareness, hosting friends and family, neighbours to a feast in her house at Abeokuta, Ogun State.

In the midst of the merrymaking, something horrible however happened, which marred the day for her. As she engrossed in the partying, greeting well-wishers and others who were helping her to cook outside, a neighbour simply identified as Mr. Segun was caught having sexual intercourse with her 40-day old baby right in her room! Being one of them in the neighbourhood, other well-wishers had left Segun, 45, in the room alone with the baby to join their colleagues who were frying beans cakes meant for the guests.

To the residents and well-wishers, it was disbelief galore, as it became unbelievable that the man, who was older than Mrs Ogundipe, could violate the little girl whom they had all, including the perpetrator, come to celebrate her thanksgiving/naming ceremony. Doubts persisted until a medical doctor confirmed a penetration in the baby’s private part, Ogundipe lamented. The culprit was arrested by the police, but surprisingly, he got bail that same day. Yet all efforts to re-arrest   and possibly prosecute him were frustrated by the people. Like in the case of Wumi, it was her relatives and other highly revered personalities in their community that mounted pressure on her to move on.

Today, she does not only live with that sad memory; she also worries about the stigma and psychological trauma as well as medical implication of the horrible incident on Remilekun, her innocent girl. “They kept calling and begging me not to prosecute the man. The man was eventually asked to vacate our area. Since then, I haven’t set my eyes on him. I am told he has travelled to the northern part of the country,” Ogundipe, who agreed to speak on the phone for fear of stigmatisation, told this reporter amidst tears.

Perhaps what will bring closure to Mrs Abigail Kushenla’s traumatized heart is to have Kingsley Chucks jailed for life. Kingsley, a teacher in one of the private schools in Bariga, Lagos State, ripped a hole in Mrs Kushenla’s heart when he allegedly defiled her six year-old daughter in the school. She observed that her little girl complained of frequent hitching with some malodorous discharge on her private part, an observation that forced the mother to prevail on her child to spill the beans. By the time the girl was man enough to narrate her frequent and secret experience with her teacher, a distraught mother almost collapsed.

When the family slammed Kingsley with threats of prosecution, the randy teacher finally owned up to the fact that he had not only repeatedly defiled the poor girl, but had penetrated her with pencil and finger during private coaching after the school hours. The school authority, which initially denied such illicit affairs of the teacher, eventually succumbed to begging Kushenla after the facts were laid bare. What forced the hands of the private school, which later dismissed the randy teacher, were threats of inviting the media to feast on the matter.

But that is not the end. Having relieved Kingsley of his appointment, the private school believed it had served justice to all parties in the sad incident. Therefore, in the estimation of the school management, the Kushelas should just go home and lick their wounds and take what happened as an ineluctable fate. To achieve this, a concerted arrangement was worked out to silence the family of the victim, as unrelenting pressure from the school, community leaders as well religious big wigs in the vicinity attempted to stop any prosecution effort to get justice for the child. For the 32-year-old mother, her hope of getting justice was further dashed owing to persistent threats to her life and that of her family if she insisted on pressing further on the matter. The poor woman finally bowed to pressure and let the man off the hook when one “revered man of God intervened.”

Digging into the heart of the matter

As gory and unpleasant as the cases seem, they are just few in the rising cases of sexual molestation against children and the agonies mothers are made to face whenever their daughters fall victim of sexual assault. To avoid the social stigma, many of cases sexual violence against children go unreported, leaving innocent girls to the rapaciousness of sexually famished men.  Although reliable national statistics is not available, child rights advocates said cases of rape of minors is fast rising, now assuming alarming rate in the country. Unfortunately, this persists because of defective and unreliable avenues for seeking redress.

And for victims of the ignoble act, life is permanently bruised by the stigma associated with it and the lifelong trauma, which can trigger fatality, especially if there is no pragmatic intervention that will put the life of the victim back on the track. The majority of child rapes are perpetrated by members of the family, but children are also sexually abused by neighbours and close associates. But experts agree that sexual assault against minors happens every second and every minute, and almost in every place – from the homes of the rich to the abodes of the teeming poor. It is frequently experienced by children of the well-to-do and the less privileged, while several cases are unreported due to ignorance and fear of stigmatisation and embarrassment that sometimes last a lifetime. According to accounts of victims and their families, the menace happens when it is least expected and from the people one can never imagine as perpetrators, for most of them are family members, trusted friends, allies and confidants.

Investigations revealed that child sexual offenders are mostly male adults who could be chauffeurs, messengers, coaches, religious leaders, teachers, gardeners, cooks and other house helps. Sometimes, the disdainful act is perpetrated by someone who is a relative of the children’s parents or someone too close to the family. Sadly, this demonic act also takes incestuous dimension as many fathers, brothers and sisters are now sexually and crazily molesting and impregnating their own little girls.

Interestingly, sexual child abuse syndrome has no barrier regarding the areas or types of houses or places where it happens. But available details seem to suggest that it occurs more frequently in multiple houses that densely populated by heterogeneous people, popularly known as “the face-me-and-face you” apartments and in the highbrow areas dotted with multi-million naira mansions often occupied by the so-rich citizens. The ugly spectre covers every part of the country.

Recently, the Medical Director of Funtua General Hospital in Kastina State,  Dr Tijjani Bakori raised alarm over spate of child rape in the country, saying that no fewer than 13 rape victims whose ages were bellow 13 were treated in the hospital within four months. He said most of the cases were so severe such that surgeries were carried out on the victims. Also, two brothers who are children of pastor in Ebonyi State  were also arrested recently for raping two sisters, Favour and Uloma aged 7 and 9 respectively. The brothers allegedly lured the unsuspecting sisters to a corner in their father’s church before carrying out the act. In Kano Municipal in 2014, it was reported that a 14yearby her 65yearold old girl was raped father, who was subsequently arrested by police. Another incident reported in 2015 in Dawakin Tofa, in the state involved the rape and subsequent pregnancy of a 17accused her 27yearyearold girl, who old boyfriend and her stepfather of perpetrating the crime.

The menace is rampant globally, indiscriminately cutting across class, geography, culture and religion.

A rising problem

Although whether the increase in reported cases is due to improved awareness is debatable, the general impression being created is that defilement cases have become more rampant and complicated today, leading to deaths and permanent deformity of many victims. And sadly, some children have contracted STDs and tested HIV positive after being defiled, since the despicable act is usually accompanied by force which leaves painful lacerations on the child’s private parts. Experts say if the menace is not checked, it may also lead to long-term psycho-somatic problems like extreme fear and anxiety, nightmares and bed-wetting among the affected children, since a child rape victim would be too scared to get up at night even when fully awake.

According to a recent global study undertaken by the Women’s World Summit Foundation, a humanitarian organisation serving the advancement of women and children’s rights, ninety per cent of the total number of defiled children stand high chances of becoming abusers in the future. The study also added that “ninety-five per cent of prostitutes and eighty per cent of substance abusers were abused as children.” Fears are rife that Nigeria is gradually moving towards joining the leagues of countries with terrible cases of child rape and sexual abuse, going by the spate of reported cases and the growing army of child rapists in the country.

Even when the police are alerted as the statutory agency for the enforcement of the law, lawyers with experience in the prosecution of children victims of rape say security agents are largely unequipped to effectively handle the growing cases. Speaking with New Telegraph on the ugly development, the immediate past director of Lagos State Office Public Defender (OPD), an agency which handles cases involving victims of rape, Mrs Omotola Rotimi, a lawyer, said while she was in the agency, the state had hundreds of child defilement and rape cases on monthly basis. She lamented that in spite of the law against child abuse, the social problem continues in silence and the society pretends as if nothing is wrong with the practice.

Based on the agency’s findings, the perpetrators of the heinous crime are mostly trusted by the victims and their parents. “Defilers gradually groom the child, particularly the girl child until they are able to initiate the girl into sex,” she said.

What the law says on child rape

In Nigeria, there is an abundance of legal provisions at the state and federal levels to protect the rights of children and minors, with strict and well-defined punishment to achieve deterrence on the part of offenders. One of the extant laws is the Child Right Law, which criminalises abuse of children generally. There other statutes that deal with the rights of the child, which includes the Criminal Code that details a range of offences meant for protection of children and preservation of their dignity. For instance, Section 218 of the Criminal Code says “any person who has unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl under the age of thirteen years is guilty of felony, and liable to imprisonment for life, with or without whipping.” Other sections of the code say an attempt to commit this offence is similarly punishable with fourteen years imprisonment. “A householder who permits his premises to be used for the above crime or induces its commission in his premises is liable to imprisonment for two years if the girl is above thirteen but under sixteen years of age.  However, such householder is liable to imprisonment for life, with or without whipping if the girl is under thirteen years of age,” says section 219 of the code, among other stiff penalties.

Lamenting the increasing spate of child sexual abuse, Mrs Titilola Vivour Adeniyi, Coordinator of the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team, DSVRT,  said the menace is not as a result of lack of legal provisions to protect the dignity of children. Citing an avalanche of laws, she explained that section 127 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State provides for defilement, which it defines as having unlawful sexual intercourse with any person bellow the age of 18. It defines anyone below the age of 18 as a child. If the offender is found guilty, Mrs Adeniyi said he or she is liable to life imprisonment, adding that the issue of consent doesn’t arise because any person below the age of 18 cannot give consent. While section 127 criminalises defilement, section 258 of the law talks about rape, she said. Under section 258, any man who has sexual intercourse with a woman or girl without her consent is guilty of rape and liable on conviction to life imprisonment.

Motivations for child rapes explained

There are divergent opinions as to why sane minds pounce on pre-pubescent children for sexual pleasure, with each school of thought providing reasons why the menace persists. While the psychological school fingers mental or personality disorder as the reason that makes the perpetrator develops sexual interest in the pre-pubescent children, others believe that many perpetrators of sexual violence against minors engage in the act for spiritual reasons -not for sexual pleasure or satisfaction.

If accounts of some offenders during interrogations are anything to go by, many child rapists engage in the act solely for spiritual reasons -money ritual or any other occultist commitments that only the initiated can make sense of. But this is not limited to Nigeria. In many African countries, especially South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia where children suffer sexual assault which ranked as the worst places in the continent, some of the perpetrators admitted that they engaged in the act because of the unconfirmed belief that having intercourse with virgins or minors will cleanse them of HIV or other diseases.

It is also a common practice in Nigeria, especially in the northern  part of the country that girls categorised as minors under the law are forcefully dragged into marriage by men old enough to be their grandfathers under the guise of adhering to religion or cultural practice. Despite the fact that Nigerian laws abhor child marriage since the girls are not old enough to give consent in that regard, perpetrators of this practice often brainwash the innocent girls and claim to have sought their consent before marrying them off. Some highly placed Nigerians in the part of the country are also guilty of this practice.

Narrating her experience at the Office of Public Defence in Lagos, which handles cases involving victims of rape, Rotimi, who served as the OPD boss since the establishment of the agency in 2007 until early this year, said it is true that many perpetrators do it for ritualistic considerations. “During the course of interrogation of the perpetrators at the OPD, some will say that when they have intercourse with little children, they also use handkerchief to wipe their private parts for money ritual purposes. Whether this is true or false, I don’t know but that is one of the reasons given by some perpetrators during investigations. That is another concern because if someone is not a paedophile, why should a baby or little girl be sexually attractive to an adult? I don’t know what a four-month-old baby or a 4-year-old baby has that will be so sexually attractive to a 40-year-old man? Certainly it is either the man is mentally sick or he has heinous spiritual motive for doing so,” she said.

She also blamed the menace on uncontrolled exposure of the children to sexual relationships or pornography, saying some parents do a lot of damage unknowingly to themselves and their wards by over-exposing their children to sexual activities.  For example, the lawyer cited the case of a 12-year-old boy who defiled her 5-year-old younger sister just because he had seen his father doing so for her mother. “We have seen cases of father defiling their own daughters, father’s friend defiling their friend’s baby girl. It is so rampart everywhere but the social vices thrive in silence,” she added.

However, Dr Gbenga Owoeye, a consultant psychiatrist and Acting Head of Clinical Service at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, debunked the spiritual reason in totality. According to him, paedophilic disorder, a psychiatrist condition characterised by sexual preference for children of pre-pubescent age, is the main cause of child sexual defilement. “The habit is called paedophilia while those who perpetrate it are called paedophiles but the condition is called paedophilic disorder which makes the person to have sexual preference for pre-pubescent children. They are those defiling children. Paedophilia was recognised in psychiatric in the early 19 century as a mental disorder. Those who do it are abnormal,” he explained.

Dr Owoeye said further that paedophilia as a condition is more common in men than women. “The paedophilia persons have sexual preference for children; they have intense sexual fantasy towards pre-pubescent children. They have increase sexual urge towards the children and they are always involved in a lot of thinking about sex towards this toddlers. Sometimes when they are engaged in this thinking, they feel anxious until they perform it before they get relieved,” he said.

What causes paedophilia? According to Dr Owoeye, causes of paedophilia are usually unknown. He however added that there are recognisable associated factors that make can an individual to develop this ruinous habit. Chief among the legion of factors that can trigger paedophilia are brain disorder, personality disorder, anxiety disorder and use of hard substances, which the renowned psychiatrist described as hyperactive substances as the main factors responsible for paedophilia in men. “Brain disorder is when a neuron disorder makes them develop the condition, while personality disorder could also make someone wanting to defile children in spite of his status. Anxiety disorder makes them to lose self-control and until they perform the act, they are not relieved. While they also engage in the act as a result of hyperactive substances; that is, when they act under the influence of hard drug,” Dr Owoeye explained.

Noting that people who defile children fail to cross-examine themselves against their own integrity, that of other persons, the socio-environment and consequences outlined by moral philosophy, the consultant psychiatrist added that paedophilia could be hereditary in nature. “A lot of things could be going on in the mind of those who involve in this act. So, a lot of factors could be responsible for someone to go a wrong way by defiling children. So, in most cases it may be psychiatrist or mental disorder, so serious that all they are interested in is to defile children. Paedophilia could also be hereditary in nature,” he said.

Are there treatment options for paedophilia? Scientifically speaking, Dr Owoeye said paedophilia has no known cure, but it could be treated or managed. The treatment available to those involved in the act of defiling young children is three-pronged: psychological treatment, medical treatment and social treatment, he said. According to him, medical treatment involves the use of drugs aimed at reducing their sexual drive in a person affected by paedophilia, while psychological treatment is the major intervention in the problem, which involves cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). “This (CBT) is similar to social treatment. When the restructuring of their thinking is done, their behaviour will become more modified that their better ways of achieving sexual desire than towards children of pre-pubescent ages,” Owoeye added.

Why the menace persists

Among other things, conspiracy of silence has been identified as the major reason why the habit persists in the country. In spite laws criminalising sexual assault against children, social stigma and pressures from family and community relations continue to force victims to maintain sealed lips, meaning the lives of children will continued to be endangered. As conspiracy of silence burrows into its way,

According to the Coordinator of the Lagos DSVRT, Vivour-Adeniyi, who lamented that the sexual violence against children is on the rise, more than 1,800 cases of child defilement were recorded between 2014 and 2016. Vivour-Adeniyi, who disclosed that male children are also being sexually molested, added that recent statistics shows that 1 out of 7 boys is sexually abused before their 18th birthday. While noting that eighty to eighty-five per cent of all abused victims are abused by someone they know, love and trust, she said the offenders are family relatives, teachers, neighbours, domestic staff and others.

As for Eze-Anaba, founder of Mirabel Centre, a centre specialised in the treatment and counselling of victim, located in the premises of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, over 2,000 cases of child defilement have been treated since 2013 when the centre was established. She disclosed that the youngest victim recorded at the centre was a case of a 4-month-old baby defiled by her father. “I am also aware that the youngest documented victim of child defilement is 40-day-old baby. As far as our document is concerned, child defilement happens right in our homes, behind the closed door and encouraged by the silence of the society, condoned by all of us because we don’t want to rock the boat. We believe wrongly that we are protecting the girl by keeping silent over it, but we are not. Just yesterday, a 3- year-old-girl in a popular ‘elitist’ school in Lagos narrated her experience on oral sex to the extent that she was about to perform the act on her younger ones. Her class teacher has groomed her to that level.”

However,  Mrs Itoro Eze-Anaba, who is also a Managing Partner, Partnership for Justice, a Non-Governmental Organisation for gender based violence, debunked isinuations that the habit is not on the increase, noting that what has been on the increase is the rate of reporting. More and more people are now aware of the need to report, she maintained. “Right now, we have minimum of 100 cases of child defilement and other related cases monthly. We have treated over 50 cases of boys raped since 2013. In the case of the raped 40-day-old baby, we understand the girl still have some medical issues.

“We have had cases of father that has raped all her three under-aged daughters and one of them got pregnant for him. The consequence of this action is that any child abused at that age, will grow up to abuse other child. There was a case of a minor that her father gave her to uncle for sex in return for money. When the uncle finally travelled out, her father continued to rape her. While she was still minor, she had abortion for both her uncle and father 7 times. What will the girl turn out to be tomorrow? We’ve also had a case of 6-year-old girl who turned out to be prostitute and began to groom her classmates in the school because she was introduced to sex at the age 3. These are few cases we have treated. Father-daughter sexual abuse is very common,”Eze-Anaba said.

On the cause of the child defilement and rape, she said that research conducted among the rape offenders in the Nigerian prisons, says offence were not committed due to the way the victim dress. “It has nothing to do with dressing. So it is a myth to say it is a result of dressing. Most rape victims are raped by the people they know. Perpetrators of child abuse prefer an introvert child than extrovert because rape and child defilement thrive in silence. It is only when we speak out that perpetrator is dis-armed. Everybody should be blamed for the persistence of child defilement cases because we shy away from it, it thrives in silence. The society trains the boy to be self-dependent and the girl to be submissive, Eze-Anaba added.”

Why the victims hardly get justice

Since the menace thrives in silence, Nigerians kids are frequently endangered when their parents, who should take up the matter against the perpetrators, suddenly compromise by either keeping quiet or refusing to report to the police. This, findings reveal responsible for the growing army of child rapist at home, in the school and everywhere in the country.

Parents remain silent for the fear of unknown or ignorance on how to get justice for the defiled child while there are instances that greed for money and gratifications makes victim’s family succumbs to pressure, even when the NGO and government agencies are bent at prosecuting the offenders. “Poverty is another factor, I have handled several cases where the parents refused to show up for interrogation because they have collected as low N3,000 of N5,000 from the accused. It has gotten that bad,” said the ex-OPD boss.

Findings have also revealed that victim’s family also deliberately frustrates child abuse trials by their attitude, especially when it involved incestuous dimension. “We have also had case of a wife whose husband defiled her daughter, but when it was time for the prosecution of the randy husband, the woman backed out simply because her husband’s family accused of her planning to send her own husband to jail,” Rotimi said. But it appears perpetrators also exploit poverty-induced-psychology of poor Nigerians who seem to be at ease upon hearing the word “settlement”, which could be material or monetary gratification. For instance, there was a case of a street hawker that was gang-raped by the police officers attached to one of the Lagos banks in Ogba, the victim suddenly terminated the prosecution process upon receiving N20,000 from the randy police officers and their lawyer.

The OPD had already taken up the matter up with the bank where the rape took place and slammed N5million suit as damages on behalf of the girl, when she went behind and collected N20,000 to frustrate the matter. “The bank was already negotiating and was ready to pay the damage when the poor girl told us she was not interested in the case again. Later, we got to know that she went behind to collect N20,000 from the accused. She relocated from her house and stopped picking our calls after we insisted on going ahead. So, we became helpless,” Rotimi added.

Harping on how poverty hinders child sexual assault cases, the lawyer said there are instances that when the landlords or his relatives committed the offence, victim’s parents are often threatened with quit notices. In this scenario, victim’s parents always immediately succumb and agree to settle out of court, especially when they lack the wherewithal to rent another house, making perpetrator to go scot-free without trial taking place. “There was a case of girl being constantly raped by her step-father, but her mother was advising the innocent girl to endure just because the man was the one sponsoring her education. What will you say about this?” asked Eze-Anaba.

“Also, when the father or other members of the family perpetrate the act, questions like: “Will you send your husband to jail? Will you allow your husband’s brother to be jailed? You can’t stay in this family if they prosecute your husband, among other blackmails. So, in this scenario, again, victim’s mother is forced to keep quiet,” Rotimi added. Eze-Anaba, however, blamed the society for allowing the cancer of child defilement to eat into the fabric of the societal values, saying that everyone has condoned the menace by keeping silence.

The Mirabel Founder, who said the habit flourishes when the victims keep mum whenever it happens, said that sometimes in some parts of the country, the police frustrate the victims by urging them to go home to settle it on the ground that ‘it’s a family matter’. “Even at that level, you will see the community leaders such as pastors, imams, traditional rulers, politicians and at times, the mother of the victim, pleading for the case to be settled out court. Another worrisome factor is the problem posed by inexperienced police officer investigating the defilement cases, leading to setbacks for on-going cases in courts.  At police stations, issues always also arise due to lack of adequate skill of the part of the prosecutor, while some cases are murdered by the police officers who deliberately frustrate the victims and discourage prosecution after having collected bribes.

Besides inadequate personnel to handle the cases, sexual abuse victims also suffer double molestation in the hand of the police, who should protect them due to lack of adequate skills to handle victim’ s case, shoddy investigations, inadequate experience and unethical practices.

For instance, Lagos State with the population of over18 million residents have only 45 trained police personnel to handle sexual abuse case.

Many victim’s families said they were frustrated by the police’s way of handling their cases, adding that spurious charges and demands often pissed them off and made them decided to “handover their cases to God”.

For instance, in Wumi and her daughter’s case, she was later framed up by the defiler and detained with her children in the police custody just because she refused to keep mum over the sexual offence against her daughter. She said it took the intervention of one IPO Aisha and a resident who paid N2,000 as bail fee, before she was released.

But debunking the allegation of unethical practices of the police in dealing with sexual assault cases, the Lagos Police Public Relations Officer, Dolapo Badmus,  a police superintendent, said that  the state Police Command just created additional 7 units to the existing 3 to tackle the menace. “I want to disagree with that, we have a lot in place to combat the menace, we have modality of handling it in conjunction with Non-Governmental Organisation and government agencies. We are training our men especially in the area of investigation, which could affect conviction if not properly done. We have five personnel trained in a division most of them are female officers and we have about 9 divisions handling such cases. Any division where we have sexual abuse case, we have to transfer the case to the divisions where we have experts who are trained on the case.” The SP said that in the event when the victim has nowhere to go or afraid of stigmatisation, the state police command has designed places called victim succour room to serve as shelter for the abused, adding that the police need the support of the public to improve on the facilities to assist the victims.

Growing child rape cases, less convictions

From January to December 2016 alone, the Lagos Police Command said it recorded 85 cases relating to sexual offence against minors. This was achieved through its Family Support Unit (SFU), a unit within the command handling sexual offence cases. According to the PPRO, 82 of the cases are still pending in court while 3 convictions have been secured. She added that the convicts bagged between 3 and 14 years imprisonment. DSVRT, on its part, said it has secured conviction on 3 child rape cases while over 200 ones are still pending in court.

While in Enugu State, the Women Aid Collective, WACOL, an Enugu State-based organisation dedicated to helping women and children revealed that 32 cases are in court, out which one conviction was recorded, seven at prosecution stage while others are awaiting trials. The victims were either rape by one person or gang.

On what appears like slow dispensation of justice, the Chief Magistrate of Lagos State, Sheri Sholebo, defended the justice system, arguing that the means of seeking redress is not diminishing. She explained that courts can only act based on the evidence before them, insisting no judge will choose to convict the accused unless the prosecution is able to establish that the offence is actually committed by the accused. On the disparity between the prosecution and conviction rates, the Magistrate said lack of evidence hinders and delays justice since judges would not fabricate one. “The only thing is that we are overwhelmed with the number of reportage and evidences before these perpetrators. Redress is not something that is difficult, but getting the parents to cooperate because of the problem of stigmatisation. A lot of parent will come to court or police station to say that I’m sorry I don’t want to go on with the case. They refuse to come to court to give evidence and there is nothing the court can do,” she said.

The Magistrate emphasised that if investigation into rape cases is shoddy, it will be impossible to secure conviction because conviction is always hinged on evidences that are thoroughly and convincingly corroborated. Being children, especially when they are less than 14 years, she stressed that the evidence before the court must be proved beyond all reasonable doubts through material corroboration. According to her, experience has shown that this can only be done through DNA forensic evidence, which is currently lacking in the country. It is therefore evident that hindrances with regard to conviction will persist until the government musters the political will to complement extant laws on rapes and defilement with establishment of forensic facilities, which will give teeth to the legal resources at the disposal of victims as well as the accused.

Corroborating the Chief Magistrate, Dr Richard Somiari, President of the United States-based ITSI, Bioscience, LLC, said that lack of forensic laboratory in the country contributes to why defilement and rape cases are rampart and why it appears the justice system in the country is doing little about it with the culprits going scot free in most cases. According to him, courts may strike out the case if there are no forensic evidences which show that indeed the crime was committed. The true import of this is that victims may never get justice if nothing is done on the establishment of forensic laboratories in the country to facilitate criminal investigation that can strengthen prosecution in defilement and rape cases.

Although some lawyers have picked holes in the current Child Right Law and questioned the efficacy of the forensic laboratory in ensuring speedy dispensation of justice for victims of child rape, Magistrate Sholebo dismissed such fears as unnecessary and diversionary. Her position is that the laws are adequate, but the means of investigating the crimes to help prosecution need to be strengthened beyond what it is now. Giving a lucid analysis of how forensic evidence works to aid speedy dispensation of justice, she said forensic laboratory is the master key to prove innocence or commission of rape offences. “There is no need of any database anywhere. If I say you slept with me, they will arrest you. They will do your own DNA and it will show that whatever they find on me matches you. They will see your hair on my body and mine on your body. That’s why we warned victims not to do early wash before they report to the police,” she said.

Recently, explaining why cases suffer set back  in court, Justice Opeyemi Oke of Lagos High Court, in a paper tiled: “Decongesting the Courts, the place of Multi Door Court house, (LMDC)”, also painted a more pitiable picture of what judges go trough in the Nigerian justice system when she said:” Lagos State judiciary is the largest and busiest in Nigeria and arguably in Africa. It has about fifty High Court Judges. In term of workload, it could be compared with judiciary in New York and state of California.

“Each judge has not less than 300 cases pending before him with new ones being added on a daily basis. We must not forget that proceedings are still being recorded in long hand with other various technical problems, some cases last for over ten years from the date of filling. For instance, in my court, I have over 20-year-old cases inherited by me from the retired judges. These are cases that have gone before two or three judges before coming to my court.”

Charting the way out

There seems to be a consensus among experts that refusal on the part of the public to expose child rape offenders is a tacit vote for the criminality, for offenders may erroneously take   silence to mean approval. To this end, Vivor-Adeniyi urged the general public to always speak out and stop the menace by exposing the sexual offenders, whom she described as enemies of the younger generation. She added that the DSVRT has launched a mandatory report campaign which makes it a duty for everybody to speak out and stop condoning the menace. To encourage the public to have a change of attitude and embrace this new initiative, she explained that DSVRT system is designed in a way that guarantees absolute privacy of both the reporter of the crime and the victim so as to avoid the stigmatization that often accompanies such selfless efforts.

Raising further issues, former OPD Director, Rotimi asked parents to drop their veneer of gullibility and stop assuming that everybody around them is innocent and virtuous. “Don’t allow your child to sit on the lap of strangers; there are paedophiles out there. It is not written on their forehead, but parents must take safety precautions. Trust nobody with your kids. Every parent must also pay special attention to their wards. Ask them questions and teach them sexual education. That is the way to go,” Rotimi advised. Echoing a similar view, Professor Oluwayemisi Obashoro-John of the University of Lagos, appealed to the government at all levels to also engage more social workers in schools to counsel and educate the pupils on sex education, saying most schools in Nigeria have few or no social workers in spite of the increasing need for them.

Eze-Anaba, on her part, warned that child defilement could be perpetrated by anybody, the tendency to always reach a compromise or settlement with child abusers is doing humongous injustice and harm to the innocent children whose future is at stake. She therefore urged parents of victims to stop collecting money and forget about it. She urged men to demonstrate their love for their daughters by rising against child defilement. “If you see something, say something. Don’t say it is not your business. Don’t say it didn’t happen to me because you don’t know the next victim. Fathers must fight for their daughters’ future by making sure that their fellow men don’t defile innocent children. Of course the institution to provide services to either the victims or the perpetrators must be up and doing; everyone must combine efforts to make sure we nip it on the bud. It is always better to prevent it than to allow it happen. We must work collectively to say no to rape and child defilement,” she said. Speaking on the way out of the menace, Dr Owoeye agreed entirely with her, adding that the best way to kick child rape out of existence is to embrace the preventive therapy. By this, the consultant psychiatrist wants all parents to pay more attention to their wards because “child defilement could lead to the death of victims.”

On her part, Magistrate Sholebo advocated the establishment of forensic laboratories and intense sensitisation and training of those handling the child rape cases at both the police and court levels as well as the prosecutors in the ministry of justice. “Sensitisation will enable them to present themselves in court to give evidence. The establishment of the forensic laboratory will help a lot because the issue is not that you slept with me, it is also that this is the particular person that that has intercourse with the victim. It is one thing to defile; it is another to link the defilement to a particular offender. That’s why the Lagos State Government is working to ensure that it has its own forensic laboratory so that immediately perpetrators are arrested there will be a quick DNA test so that they can be linked to the commission of the offence. I think those are the solutions,” she said.