Amid the rising cases of rape in the country, some rape victims have narrated their painful ordeals toSome of the victims said they had yet to heal from their grief, saying they were subjected to unto
ld trauma following their bitter experiences.
The incident which happened on November 29, 2019 was reported at the Elere Police Station, Lagos and Raheem was arrested. “Only he and I were at home that day. Others had gone to work. He barged into the bathroom with a knife and said he had seen everything on my body. He threatened to stab me if I shouted and that nobody would hear my voice. He said he purposely waited at home for people to go out. After he had sex with me, he vowed to kill me if I told anybody.”
She explained, “One of the suspects had made advances to me but I refused. On that day, I was returning from a naming ceremony at about 11 pm when eight men, including the one who approached me earlier, accosted me and forcibly took me to an apartment, threatening me and beating me with machetes. Another rape victim, Bella has had to leave her home in Egor, Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State, for Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, after she was raped twice in one week by men suspected to be cultists.that she had been living with her stepmother in Egor for some years. Her mother had died shortly after her birth while her father died about five years ago. Since then, Bella said she had been living with her father’s second wife, hawking fufu for her on the streets of Egor.
“The incident took place in April. A few days after I was raped, they accosted me again while I was selling fufu, and they forcibly took me to a place where they raped me. They said I had automatically become their girlfriend. I think they were cult members.” “He told me he had not eaten that day so I went to his kitchen to prepare something for him. While I was going to the kitchen, he said he bought my favourite juice for me and that I could take it from the fridge. I took the drink. I never knew it had been injected with sedatives.
Another rape victim, Rachael Mgbanuchukwu , couldn’t hold back tears as she disclosed to one of our correspondents that it was her father who raped her. “He molested me until I was 18 years old; it was at that age that I finally got the courage to voice out to my boyfriend. My boyfriend decided to report the matter but my father heard of it and beat me mercilessly. He invited me to his place and threatened to shoot my boyfriend. I had to break up with my boyfriend.”, another rape victim, Sophia, said she was raped by an uncle who lived with her family.
“I told my mum about it but she felt I was young or hallucinating because I used to be talkative. Even when I became withdrawn from the family members, she never believed me. I had to live in silence thereafter.” The victim, now 23, said the story of the rape and murder of Uwaila Omozuwa, a 100-level Microbiology student of the University of Benin, opened a wound that had yet to heal in her life., another rape victim, Chiamaka Sylvia, narrated how she was gang-raped by six men in Imo, Owerri State when she was an undergraduate at Imo State University in 2005.
“After some time, he locked the door. I stood up to stop him but he pushed me and dragged me inside and asked me to take off my clothes. “One of my uncles advised my father to leave the case because the rapists might come and kill me. My father is dead so I’m not sure if he made a formal complaint to the police,” she said.“It brought back memories. This is what I have to live with every day. The memories are always new every time. I want people to be bold enough to speak up. I want him to know that his sins will catch up with him. He knew that I knew him, he thought he was untouchable because of his father’s influence.
Another rape victim, 24-year-old Victoria Sorochi, said she was assaulted by a gang of hoodlums on her way back from church during her undergraduate days in 2016. Sexual violence against women and girls has been on the front burner in the past two weeks after a 100-level student of the University of Benin, Uwaila Omozuwa, was allegedly raped and murdered inside a church in Benin, Edo State.
The guard reportedly found Uwaila in a pool of blood, called for help and the victim was rushed to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital. However, Uwaila died last Saturday. But less than a week after Uwaila’s rape and murder, Barakat Bello, an 18-year-old student of the Federal College of Animal and Production Technology, Moore Plantation, Apata, Ibadan, Oyo State, suffered the same fate.
As the protests and demands for the justice of rape victims ensued, Amnesty International called on the President to declare rape a national crisis in the country.findings showed that a majority of cases in Nigeria are not reported due to fear of stigmatisation by the victims. Therefore, data on rape cases are very limited.
Similarly, the Women At Risk Foundation in a 2018 report said the statistics at its disposal revealed that over 10,000 girls were being raped in Nigeria daily. WARIF founder, Dr Kemi DaSilva-Ibru, was reported to have stated this at a workshop to train law enforcement officers in Lagos. In 2015, the Federal Government enacted the Violence Against Persons Act, aimed at banning all forms of violence and providing justice for such crimes.
Okah-Donli added that the government was making efforts such as securing more convictions of rape suspects and updating the Sex Offenders Register to ensure that sexual and domestic abuses abated. Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, said a virtual meeting had become necessary due to the recent escalation of sexual and gender-based violence in the country.
Gbajabiamila said he was aware that about 27 states had yet to domesticate the Violence Against Persons Prohibition and Child Rights Acts. He stated that the National Assembly would take the initiatives to its state counterparts. They also demanded the domestication of the Violence Against Persons Act and Child Rights Act in all the states of the federation and establishment of Sexual Assault Referral Centres in every state, backed with a coordinated, sustainably-funded support system.
In a statement by his spokesman, Mallam Mamman Mohammed, on Friday, Buni vowed that rapists would be made to face the full wrath of the law. “Together with Wife of Deputy Governor, Mrs Oluremi Hamzat, Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation and all relevant agencies of @followlasg, we say #NoToRape, #NotInOurState and #NotInOurCountry.”
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