Opinion: Nigeria and Its Feeble Laws Against Sex Offenders, Olabisi Deji-Folutile
Kenyan authorities last week came up with a policy to tackle the growing incidence of teenage pregnancy in the East African country. Under the new guideline, pregnant pupils must reveal the identities of those responsible for their pregnancies to their head teachers. It doesn’t matter whether sexual activity is consensual or through rape. If the boyfriend is a teenager, the school enrols him for counselling and pays for the service.
Sexual assault is said to be a major problem in Kenya, resulting in huge drop-out rate for girls. Just as it happens in Nigeria, Kenyan adults, including teachers, rape minors at will. In fact, cases of teachers raping children are so prevalent in the country, such that not less than 1,000 teachers have been sacked in the last eight years, for having sexual relations with their students. This figure is from the Kenyan Teachers Service Commission.
For crying out loud, why should any state government in this age and time, refuse to domesticate the Child Rights Act- an offshoot of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the child? The Act simply prohibits child marriage; seeks better welfare for children; and supports compulsory education for every child, among other progressive provisions.
Up till now, Section 29 (sub section 4{6} of the 1999 Constitution, is still being exploited to coerce underage girls into marriage. The case of Eze Oriru, the girl abducted from Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, to Kano in 2015, is still fresh in our minds. Despite all the hue and cry about the issue, nothing came out of it.
If the laws against sexual assaults in Nigeria are executed to the letter, I doubt if there would still be space in our prisons to accommodate sex offenders. Many men’s addresses would have long changed to Gashua, Kirikiri and Kuje Prisons, since a lot of them would probably be spending their lifetime in jail.
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