Tessy Igomu

Globally, it is a crime as old as time itself. It is one that has seen many stripped of their chastity and innocence in the most brutal way. 

Rape of late has been on the increase in Nigeria, especially that of minors. Daily, it happens and the stories are as horrid as the mere thought of the act itself.

In the past few weeks, it has been on the front burner and has received widespread criticism, after a top pastor was accused of sexually abusing a minor. The accusation started an uproar that saw several angry Nigerians taking to the social media and streets in protest against all forms of rape, especially rape allegedly perpetrated by clerics. For many, the public outcry was long overdue. It was an awakening, a call to action against an ill that had long festered.

The rape of innocent, vulnerable children by clerics who have obligations to mentor, protect, counsel and guide such children spiritually increases by the day.  As the day breaks, the air is replete with mind-boggling media reports of underage children defiled by supposed ‘men of God’, in whose care they were entrusted. As the gory details of such perverted sexual escapades emerge, they provoke revulsion from horrified individuals. For many, it is clearly a case of broken trust on all fronts.

The trend, most say, keeps festering due to the inability of public institutions to address the menace by punishing the perpetrators. Others see it simply as an indictment on the nation’s policies and laws.

A trajectory of horror

The ignoble acts committed by supposed ‘men of God’ are too numerous to mention, as more sordid and mindboggling acts keep unfurling by the day.

Early this month, the Lagos State Police Command arrested a pastor, Pope Paul, for allegedly raping and impregnating a 15-year-old girl in Igando, Lagos. Reports said the mother of the victim discovered that her daughter was pregnant after she was brought to live with the pastor in Lagos. Investigations revealed that the pastor started having intercourse with the teenager in January, two years after she joined the family.

On June 25, an Abuja-based pastor, Apostle Basil Princewill, who raped and procured an abortion for a 14-year-old girl in 2011, was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. The cleric was reported to have forcefully had sex with the victim between July 27 and December 31, 2011, at Mountain Mover Ministry International and in his house, both in Abuja.

The presiding judge, Justice Husseini Baba-Yussuf of the FCT High Court in Maitama, said the action was a desecration of the house of God. He also held that the commission of rape was bad enough, “but it became more worrisome when the convict was someone looked upon as a man next to God.”

Another cleric, Johnson Adeleke, on June 20, 2017, bagged a five-year jail term for raping a church member’s daughter. The pastor, who presided over a new generation church in Abeokuta, Ogun State, committed the act in 2004, when the victim was 14 years old.

Similarly, an FCT high court sentenced a 24-year-old cleric, Michael Dimowo, to 10  years in prison for raping a six-year-old girl.

A Muslim cleric, Alfa Ishaq Gbadegesin, was reportedly caught in the act by his wife while using his finger to penetrate his 15-year-old daughter and forcing her to caress his manhood. The 43-year-old was caught on November 7, 2016, in his residence in Shomolu, Lagos. He was subsequently arraigned before an Igbosere magistrate’s court.

A 43-year-old Islamic Studies teacher, Abdulsalam Salaudeen, was also arrested by the police for defiling a five-year-old girl. Salaudeen, a resident of Awoyemi Street, Igando Road, Ikotun, Lagos, was recorded on video while engaging in the act.

Highly endangered

The global prevalence of rape and child defilement has been estimated at 19.7 per cent for females and 7.9 for males, based on a 2009 study published in Clinical Psychology Review, a health publication that examined 65 studies from 22 countries. The data also attributed the highest prevalence rate of child sexual abuse geographically to Africa.

Though boys fall victim, researches have narrowed down on the girl child as highly endangered. This is because men of their fathers’ age and, in many cases, their biological fathers, defile them and inflict lifelong physical and emotional pain on them.

A research conducted by a group of lecturers from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, under the aegis of Women on Molestation, Intimate Harassment and Intimate Exploitation, showed that 80 per cent of girls, before attaining age 18, experience intimate violence and abuse, while 31 per cent of them experience intimate violence and abuse before 13.

It also indicated that 80 per cent of 3,118 students interviewed had experienced intimate violence and abuse, adding that it was alarming that molestation and other forms of intimate violence against girls in the study were perpetrated in the homes of the victims.

The principal researchers, Dr. Olutoyin Mejiuni and Prof. Oluyemisi Obilade, said some men capitalised on the trust reposed in them to molest their victims, as investigations revealed that the assailants were mainly their religious leaders, relatives, teachers, family friends and neighbours, among others.

Psychologists have described rape as a life-altering act that can, in a minute, negatively change the course of life of a victim forever. Funsho Akintola, a counsellor, said most victims of child sexual abuse, who have sought help from her suffered from depression, low self-esteem and panic attacks long after the deed. She noted that rape victims live with the trauma for life, while, with time, some get diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Dr. Charles Umeh, a clinical psychologist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos, noted that people with a history of sexual abuse tend to grow up becoming perpetrators. He explained that another factor is arrested development, where adults tend to use children for sexual gratification. He explained that some others see sexuality as a means of dominance, and because they can’t really reach out to the opposite sex, they subdue minors to prove their masculinity. In his view, most of the perpetrators work as teachers, hostel masters, and pastors, with many of them involved in sporting activities or anything that readily gives them access to a prey.

 

Underreported

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Experts averred that statistics on rape might not really be an accurate reflection of the extent of the crime, as most of the acts go unreported. This they attributed to fear of being shamed, stigmatised or the culture of silence that exists not only in Nigeria but in the whole of Africa. They, however, stressed that data in the public domain should be enough to elicit an immediate call to action.

Findings from a national survey carried out by Women at Risk International Foundation (WARIF) in 2014, on Violence Against Children in Nigeria, revealed that one in four females reported experiencing sexual violence in childhood, with approximately 70 per cent reporting more than one incident of sexual violence. It also revealed that 24.8 per cent of females between the ages of 18 and 24 years experienced sexual abuse prior to age 18. Of the lot, 5.0 per cent sought help and about 3.5 per cent received no services.

The 2018 report of the Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team of the Ministry of Justice, Lagos State, showed a 134 per cent increase in incidence of rape, defilement and domestic violence compared to 2017. While it recorded 279 child abuse cases, 78 defilement cases and 44 cases of rape, the agency said the incidence of child abuse and defilement rose by 251 and 37, respectively. That of rape was said to have increased by 24 per cent.

The Lagos State Police Command, on its part, recorded about 678 cases between 2012 and 2013, while a total of 162 cases of sexual and physical abuse were recorded by April 27, 2016.

The office of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation in Lagos State said it handled 589 cases, ranging from sexual abuse to physical abuse and child labour, in 2016.

Former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State, Mr. Adeola Ipaye, at a point described the spate of rape and defilement as alarming and reaching a crisis stage. He put the figure of reported cases of minors’ raped and defiled in 2012 alone at 427, stressing that many cases remained unreported.

The Office of the Public Defender (OPD), a department under the Lagos State Ministry of Justice, also disclosed in a report that, between January and March 2012, 39 cases of child abuse were handled by the office while 15 cases of rape and 17 cases of defilement were also treated. Between January and September 2015, the OPD also reported handling about 70 child defilement cases and 406 rape cases, with 1,143 of such cases treated between 2007 and 2015.

In 2014, a hospital in Edo State reportedly handled 80 rape cases in seven months. The TAMAR Sexual Assault Referral Centre, Enugu, said it received 472 separate cases of sexual violence since 2014. Out of the report, 89 victims were gang-raped, while seven were not able to remember the number of persons that raped them. Among that number, 354 knew the rapists, while 118 didn’t. But only 37 were charged to court, out of which five were discharged.

 

What the law says

Based on the Criminal Code, Cap ‘C38’, the punishment for rape, as spelt out in Section 358, is life imprisonment, while an attempt to commit rape attracts 14 years. Over the years, punishment for rapists has been described by human rights activists as a mere slap on the wrist, while victims who survive the ordeal are made to live with the stigma for life.

However, some members of the Senate, while expressing worry over the increasing incidence of rape, resolved that handing the death penalty to offenders would go a long way to serve as deterrent. The lawmakers also rued the need to review relevant laws as well as open register for rape offenders.

To Funke Agbola, the crime thrives due to the complacency of society. She also lamented the attitude of Nigerians towards victims of rape.

“There is need to eradicate this salient culture of silence that hangs thickly like a cloak on rape. Most victims would rather keep quiet and move on, while those that know about the incident and the culprit involved would choose to turn a blind eye. Unfortunately, without evidence and witnesses, a rape case might end up dead on arrival. The voice against rape is criminally silent, the institutions to render support sick and culpable of the act, while the law against rape is ineffective. There is need to strengthen the law to accommodate stiff punishments that will act as a deterrent,” she said.

Mrs. Funmi Falana, a Lagos-based lawyer and public commentator, said the Nigerian Constitution was biased against women.

She said: “By virtue of Section 353 of the Criminal Code Act, any person who unlawfully and indecently assaults any male person is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment for three years. But Section 360 of the act regards indecent assault on a woman a misdemeanour, which attracts a punishment of two years’ imprisonment.

“The serious criminal offence of having carnal knowledge of a girl being of or above 13 years and under 16 years of age or of a woman or girl who is an idiot or imbecile is classified as a misdemeanour, which is punishable by two years imprisonment under Section 221 of the Criminal Code. Even then, the accused may be discharged and acquitted if he can prove that he believed on reasonable grounds that the girl was of or above the age of 16 years.”

A human rights lawyer, Feyintola Akintola, said prompt professional response from the police should not be compromised, irrespective of who was involved. She noted that lack of confidence in the criminal justice system has made victims to recoil into their shells. She decried the lack of empathy exhibited towards rape victims by family, friends, the police and the society.

“Some are blamed for the crime and mocked for bringing shame and dishonour to the family. Lack of proper investigation, weak legal sanctions and lack of profiling of sex offenders all add up to lending steam to child sexual abuse. In most cases, it is the word of the perpetrator against that of the victim. The judiciary should be the first to stand in defence of rape victims and maximum punishment handed to sex offenders after thorough investigation.”

 

Call to action 

Notable Nigerians, including celebrities, have unanimously demanded a call to action. Bisi Fayemi, wife of Ekiti State governor, Kayode Fayemi, while recalling her near rape encounters as a minor, said rape victims should be encouraged to speak about their ordeal without fear.

Pastor Nike Adeyemi, wife of Pastor Sam Adeyemi of Daystar Christian Centre, also urged rape victims to speak up in order to walk in freedom and to also get professional counselling from trained experts.

Mrs. Celine Njoku, a counselling psychologist and fellow of Counselling Association of Nigeria, called for collective action to protect minors from rape. She lamented that some clerics that have lost God’s direction use their spiritual authority as a licence to destroy the lives of minors with impunity. She said the debauchery that occurs on the altar of some churches has reached an irredeemable height. To Nigerians generally, it is high time the authorities walked the talk and ensured that all hands were on deck towards safeguarding the most vulnerable in society.