The other day, I watched an interview granted a four-year-old rape
survivor. Narrating how ‘Uncle Elias’, her school proprietor continuously
defiled her, the girl said: “He wide (sic) my leg, cover my mouth, tell me to
shut up….he will lap me, sit down on the chair and be doing me.” As a result,
her mother confirms she suffers grave injuries around her private part. These
past few years, I have experienced serious disturbance over alarming reports of
cases of rape and child defilements. But our laid-back approach in handling the
cases dazes me more. I don’t regard cases of child defilement as rape. I
believe it is worse. An adult can expressly deny consent. An adult can put up a
fight, and might succeed in escaping. But a child is helpless. A child does not
understand consent, cannot give, or deny it.
As a people, how have
we been able to condone this evildoing? Could it be that we are more tolerant
of child-rapists? We adopt religion and culture as modes of validating the
defilement of the girl-child. We ignore their silent screams. Why do we protect
these monsters in our space? Why is it impossible to end such occurrence? Why
can we not make those guilty of these crimes ‘pay severely’?
Marta Pais, a United
Nations envoy in an interview granted in The Guardian on March 20, 2016, puts
the statistics of Nigerian children who experience different forms of sexual
abuse at 25%. That figure should be higher, given the numbers of cases that go
unreported. In 2015, the Executive Director of Project Alert, a
Non-Governmental Organisation based in Lagos
Late
December 2015, the internet awash with a video posted by the Dorothy
Njemarze Foundation of a three-year-old recounting how her 30-year old uncle
defiled her. In 2015,
a UNICEF report states that the number of Child Brides
in Africa will rise to 310 million in the next
35 years. Many of those girls, the report concludes, are in Nigeria
Under Section 2-4 of
the Sexual Offence Bill, the penalty for defiling a child between the ages of
0-month and 18 years is life imprisonment. Under section 31(1) and (2) of
the Child’s Right Act, the punishment for defiling and raping a child is life
imprisonment. These laws are even yet to be fully domesticated in all the 36
states of the country. There are several other international treaties to which Nigeria
Under Section 216 of
the Criminal Code Act, CAP 77, 1990, indecent sexual dealings with a boy under
the age of 14 attract seven years imprisonment. In Section 218, unlawful carnal
knowledge of a girl under the age of 13 is punishable with life imprisonment.
Section 361, 362 and 363 of the same act defines abduction and spells out the
penalties. The age limit for a victim is put at 16. Whereas, the Penal
Code, under Section 282(e), puts the age limit for a girl to be a victim of
rape below 14 years of age. We must resolve the contradictions by agreeing on
who a minor is – a child below 18 years.
Children defilers
should be kept away permanently, or eliminated. And the trials and conviction
should attract massive media publicity, to convince other victims that justice
will be served. It will also serve as deterrence to prospective rapists.
Meanwhile, victims’
parents could adopt the Angelina option. Angelina Kyomugisha chopped off the
manhood of her daughter’s rapist, and a dog ran off with it. You could take
other options as your anger leads. I am sure it would spur our laws to
become more effective. Just don’t let the matter die. Do something, radical.
Adults, especially
males, please negotiate your sexual urges with fellow adults, get their
consents and allow our children enjoy the peace of childhood.
*Ajibola wrote from Lagos
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