IS it possible to end sexual violence against women? This week, the world asks this question to our people and governments as we start the 21 days of activism on violence against women.

The world appears to be answering the question this week. Yes, we can stop gender violence. But that is when most violators are punished.

In the last few years, there appears to be a round of public soul-searching over the rising tide of sex crime against young girls across the world including in Nigeria. Recent figures show rapid increase in incident of sexual violence, including gang rapes, defilement, incest, etc with no increase in punishment of the culprits. The Indian gang rape tragedy exposed the stack vulnerability of young women in our modern society and also the role of the larger society in ravenously demanding for justice. The uproar that followed the incident and the trials resonated across the globe, touching the conscience of humanity. I do not support death sentence for any offence because it is inhuman, but I support locking away rapists and murderers in prison for life.

Murderers in prison

In Nigeria, it is debauched impunity for sex offenders. Despite daily reports of sex crimes, little actions are taken against rapists, paedophiles and defilers. The rate of rape and other sexual violence is unimaginable in the communities, workplace, homes and schools especially in the higher institutions.

The wide use of social media has made more visible than before the sexual abuse of young women and the impunity around it. Many culprits post their rape scenes of social media with bluster bravado.The ‘Abia 5’ episode in 2010 exposed the intrepid audacity of men against vulnerable women. Gang raping of women and posting the recorded video on internet is now the new measure of prodigal masculinity among depraved young men. If you google‘rape in Nigeria’, you will be amazed at the tons of recent YouTube postings. You marvel at the fact that despite the high rate of sex crimes and the nude openness of the incidents, there are little prosecutions. In the last 10 years or so, many victims have demonstrated boldness in pursing justice against their attackers, yet most cases are unpunished. Many more incidents are still not reported or when reported, wickedly compromised and truncated by unabashed conspiracy among the community, poverty and law enforcers.

Lagos State Ministry of Justice recently announced that it received complaints of 678 cases of rape in 2012 and only prosecuted 6. Similar situation exists across the country. In Anambra State NGOs working in the area recorded 115 incidents and complaints of sexual violence but only 12 cases were taken up with the police but none prosecuted to finality. In 2009, four policemen gang-raped 2 students of Enugu State University, resulting in near death of one of them, who later tested positive to HIV.

Despite repeated demands for justice by NGOs, the policemen were merely suspended and later dismissed but never prosecuted. In June 2011 in Egbeda near Lagos,Miss ‘M’ a 16-year old girl was raped by a young man called ‘onyibo’. She was brutally injured but refused to report to her parents because the rapists threatened to kill her if she told anyone, but she could not hide her wounds. Her father on discovering what happened took her to the police station, where ‘onyibo’ was arrested but released the same day. The girl was asked to report back to the police, and when she turned up, a lustful policeman who was pretending to be assisting her sexually assaulted her several times, and later that night at the station raped her twice.

Prosecution of culprits

Her father reported to NGO LEDAP who filed petition against the policeman requesting the Lagos police commissioner to investigate and prosecute the culprits.

This was not done and a case is currently filed at the Ikeja High Court seeking relevant orders to prosecute. Miss ‘M’ and her father remain resolute to prosecute the men that rendered her future traumatic, but the justice system are failing them, in the same way the system had failed hundreds of thousands of previous victims.

The courts have been bashed for lenient sentences and most times, applying strict unfriendly rules of evidence that are unfavourable to the sex crime victims. Last month, a Lagos Magistrate court granted bail in the paltry sum of N20,000 to a man who raped a 19-year old girl and posted the scene on the internet. In 2012, a Gudu Area Court in Abuja sentenced a45 year-old man to one month imprisonment or N1000 fine for raping an 11-year old girl. The Court officials told NGOs that protested the lenient sentence that the girl’s family told the prosecutor that the rapist had asked for their forgiveness and had paid them N50,000 for the medical expenses. Many more rapists are never put to trial because the families of the victims accepted money as compensation.

The society appears to connive within itself to protect rapists and paedophiles, and to frustrate and traumatise abused women. Did you listen to commentaries from the police and Abia state public officials following the gang rape of a girl by 4 men in Abia state University? It was a tale of blaming the victim and excuses for the culprits.

The social and legal order simple protect licentious lustful men. The law and procedure of prosecuting sex crimes are lenient in favour of the offenders. There is need for tougher laws, tougher enforcement of sex crime laws, and effective prosecution of sex offenders. Lagos State took a giant step in 2011 when it made rape and many other sex crimes punishable by life imprisonment in its new Criminal Law. Section 258 provides that

“(1) Any man who has unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman or girl, without her consent, is guilty of the offence of rape and liable to imprisonment for life.”

Subsection (2) provides that “A woman or girl does not consent to sexual intercourse if she submits to the act by reason of force, impersonation, threat or intimidation of any kind, fear of harm or false or fraudulent representation as to the nature of the act.”

Unhappily, the new law did not go far enough against spousal rape, which has been criminalised in many parts of the world.

Subsection (3) provides that “Sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who are married is not unlawful”, thereby permitting a husband to ‘rape’ his wife, giving wide leverage for family related sexual violence. But the law is tough against other sex crimes. Section 259 punishes unconsented oral or anal sex including gay sex, with life imprisonment. The section provides thus:

“Any person who penetrates sexually the anus, vagina, mouth or any other opening in the body of another person with a part of his body or anything else, without the consent of the person is guilty of a felony and liable to imprisonment for life”.

The new Lagos Criminal law also punishes sexual harassment, though with paltry imprisonment of 3 years without option of fine. The offence is defined widely as follows: “262 (1)Sexual harassment is unwelcome sexual advances, request for sexual favours, and other visual, verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature which when submitted to or rejected–

(a) implicitly or explicitly affects a person’s employment or educational opportunity or unreasonably interferes with the person’s work or educational performance;

(b) implicitly or explicitly suggests that submission to or rejection of the conduct will be a factor in academic or employment decisions; or

(c) creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive learning or working environment.

Furthermore, inappropriate sexual advances, touching or smooching of another are criminalised in the law, by section 261, which provides that “Any person who sexually touches another person without his consent is guilty of a felony and liable to imprisonment for three years.”

Though these tough laws are welcome, they are meaningless with poor enforcement. The police and prosecutors have clearly failed to stand for victims of sex crimes, most of whom would rather die in tortuous silence than expose themselves to secondary traumatisation in the hands of justice system officials. It is time the society stands up to demand for justice for victims of sex crime in the way the Indian society rose up in unison to demand an end to impunity for rapists. This is a social responsibility for all men and women of conscience.

*Chino Obiagwu is of the Legal Defence & Assistance Project, LEDAP

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