RAPE AND THE RISE OF FEMINISM IN NIGERIA

In our contemporary world, we see the rise of feminism advocacy in the lane of rape and social abuses made on women and the girl child. A girl child in African feel insecure in the chauvinist society where male rights are more accorded than female rights, this is not peculiar in other society like the developed where feminist rights are respected and accorded.in a case of Vera Uwaila Omozuwa, a 22-year-old microbiology student from the University of Benin who was raped in the church speaks a lot to the levity act of Nigerian authority in address the issues of the rape case and making deep law on offenders of such act. As the rise of female advocacy rights emerges we can also see cases like these in Jigawa Kaduna and other northern parts of Nigeria

The consequential effect of the increased risk of girl-child sexual assault Conditions as social abuses in Nigeria can be found in schools, with the emergence of baby factories and the practice of child labor. Studies have been proven in Nigeria that young girls are victims in the majority of reported assault cases in hospitals. A four-year review of sexual assault cases at LASUTH that began in 2008 and ended in December 2012, showed that out of a total of 287 reported cases of sexual assault, 83% of the victims were below the age of 19. A one-year survey conducted at Enugu State University Teaching Hospital between 2012 and 2013 revealed that 70% of sexual assault victims were under the age of 18. In the Enugu survey, the majority of the victims knew their perpetrators and the assault occurred inside uncompleted buildings and the victims or perpetrator's residence. UNICEF reported in 2015 that one in four girls and one in ten boys in Nigeria had experienced sexual violence before the age of 18. According to a survey by Positive Action for Treatment Access, over 31.4 percent of girls there said that their first sexual encounter had been raped or forced sex of some kind. In addition, the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development reported that 1,200 girls had been raped in 2012 in Rivers, a coastal state in southeastern Nigeria. According to UNICEF, six out of ten children in Nigeria experience emotional, physical and sexual abuses before the age of 18, with half experiencing physical violence.

It is also pertinent to note that Religious and communal stigma associated with surrogacy and adoption has created an increase in baby factories in Nigeria. where a large number of female victims in these baby factories are young adolescents, after deep fact-finding, it has been noted that Operators of these baby factories mostly prey on pregnant young girls who are from lower-income households, unmarried and are afraid of the public stigma associated with teenage pregnancy. Though, the majority of the girls who enter the factory are pregnant some of the girls in the factories were kidnapped or bartered to the operators. These girls are then raped solely for the purpose of procreation and ritual acts, most of the babies sold in the baby factories are sold to ritualist and those looking for children for adoption. as dehumanizing this act maybe it is a continuous act that has let many unemployed youths into it as a business they earn their living in. they sell these babies gotten from poor ladies or women to some influential personalities which they cannot disclose to the media and security personnel. The NIGERIA’s Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Dame Pauline Tallen, confirmed that two million Nigerians are raped every year, but there is no reliable public data to support this claim. The Federal Government has launched the Sex Offenders register to tackle issues of rape in Nigeria to eradicate this social menace. However, the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development (FMWASD), Dame Pauline Tallen in Abuja while unveiling the register at the 2019 International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women, saying there cannot be any justification for rape.

The continuous use of unwanted drugs amongst men is a social condition factor that has led to this problem, most of these youths are unemployed and their idleness subjects them to laziness that results in the high increase in single motherhood and child population amongst their raped victims. Nigerians today have joined the rest of the world to stop this problem facing the youths awaiting governments. proactive actions.


written by MOORE-OBI tolulope