The rate at which rape cases rise in the country in recent times is worrisome, and it is not surprising why activists and concerned individuals have come up on different platforms to condemn this barbaric, heinous and shameful act, protests have been held on social media platforms, on radio and television stations, even on the streets, and one would wonder why such a surge in the protests has yielded no positive result, instead, you will think these protests actually gingers these evil perpetrators to keep committing this crime, week after week we hear of rape cases, and in extreme ones, it leads to the death of young promising girls and ladies in the most unimaginable circumstances.

It is so disheartening, obnoxious, and even scary, to hear about the defilement of minors, as one would wonder what could possibly be the driving force that compels these evil doers to deprive an innocent young girl with a promising future of her integrity and dignity. It has often been said that there is no excuse for rape, which of course there isn’t, and there can never be, because you possibly cannot imagine what excuse there is to give for the raping of a girl of 3-5yrs old, not to talk of babies that are just months old. What excuse can a father possibly give for raping his own daughter; maybe it’s not really about the excuse, but the intention, the reason behind such act, as no sane man will become so unreasonable to have forced sex with his own daughter. Mere trying to picture this situation is nauseating and annoying.

Our actions are the products of our intentions, that is, it is your intentions that you act on, you must have thought it before you acted it, what these animals want is to gratify their sexual desires by any means possible and that is what we must fight against.

As far as I am concerned, I believe it is only a mentally demented woman or lady that will come forward to falsely accuse a man of raping her, this is in view of the views held by certain individuals that victims of rape who come out years after the unfortunate incident only want to tarnish the image of the accused as there will be no viable evidence to support her cause, or perhaps for whatever other reasons given, but it is with all frankness that I say that for every rape cases reported, proper steps should be taken by the appropriate authorities to find out the facts and issues in the case, because seriously, we live in a society where victims of rapes are scared to come out to recount their ordeals in the hands of these monsters because of the fear of what the society will say, because of the accompanying shame that comes with it, rape victims are stigmatized and made to feel less of themselves, they are plunged into an agonizing mental breakdown, they are afraid of opening up on the psychological trauma they are suffering from because they just cannot bare the ridicule the society will hurl at them, and for these victims to have mustered the courage, not minding what the society will think or say, to come to the open and make known the hidden, they should be taken seriously, protected and fought for.

There are lots of cases going unreported or unprosecuted, not because we did not know they happened, but because of these societal factors, because of our laws, because of the world we live in and so for a victim to have summoned the courage to come out, this should not be side waived or taken with levity, proper prosecution of these cases will serve as a deterrent for intending rapists, even if justice is not achieved in this case, at least the mere knowledge of being exposed will reduce the number of cases and our girls can and will be safe.

These perpetrators have come up with ridiculous excuses to “justify” their gruesome acts, ranging from dressing, to misplaced consent, to revenge, and even to wickedness. Just weeks back we heard of a case of a Muslim lady (and a woman in purdah for that matter), and one would want to try to link that with dressing, like how could that have suddenly awoken your manhood to start dangling like the object in a church bell, as in, what did you see?. And shockingly, these insane individuals have excuse, “we want to see what she is hiding”, and one cannot but link this act to sheer wickedness, and uttermost asininity.

As much as I have touched on the need to prosecute and report these cases, nothing much will be achieved if victims of rape refuse to cry out and make known their ordeals, but the reasons why this is difficult will be discussed under the subheadings below:

  1. The individual
  2. The society and
  3. The law

 THE INDIVIDUAL

These are the rape victims, as much as it is a burden to be a rape victim; so also is being a victim of ridicule, rape victims quickly become the subject matter of the society, they suddenly become the point of public discussion, and they are being treated like an outcast, and as such, they find it difficult to open up on what is eating them up inside out, and so they just bottle up and continue to endure the unimaginable pains, nursing these pains while they keep a straight face in the society as if nothing is wrong, but deep down a whole lot is wrong.

Some unscrupulous individuals even take advantage of their state of mind, either emotionally, or to achieve their own ends by using their stories as source of income or feathering their own wings, all these things culminate into what discourages other victims from opening up.

These victims cannot bare the pain of being treated as weak, because the society tends to treat these victims as if they are not complete to be part of the full society, and all these things sum up asreasons for the rise we have in rape cases, because it gives these perpetrators the guts to continue on this rampage, to act with impunity, to continue on the mission of rubbing our girls of their soul and body, stealing what can never be replaced, depriving them of their self-esteem and dignity as a woman.

And to be candid, no amount of justice is enough for a rape victim, because the justice given is not in any way commensurable with what has been taken away from them, their pride!

Which crime could possibly be greater than that which destroys or takes away what can never be restored or gotten back?

 

All these contribute to the reasons why a case of rape seems to go unnoticed in our society, and not until we put an end to these acts, we might keep getting reports of RAPE.

Again, I will say, it is never the fault of the individual who refuses to open up, but it inadvertently contributes to the reasons why we keep having these cases

THE SOCIETY

Now, apart from the issue of having to report cases, it is the issue of  what then happens when these cases are reported, you only hear of the report, and a little of the prosecution, before you know it, the case has been swept under the carpet.

The society, ranging from individuals and families also contribute to the lack of effective prosecution of these cases, there are cases which after the legal processes had started, families start to foot drag, they suddenly lose interest in pushing forward on prosecuting the accused, the reason behind this is not fully understandable, and there are reports of the individuals or families going behind the scene and making arrangements to resolve this matter as against how any reasonable man will do, make no mistake  by thinking this is a form of an alternative dispute resolution, no, this is totally out of the adjudicatory or non-adjudicatory processes, in fact it can be termed as illegal, because there are obvious and admissible evidences that can be used to pursue this case to a decisive end in the court of law, but suddenly, you don’t just see the brake lights of the parties involved, they have all backed out, even when the state has the power to continue the case as against the interest of the parties, that is, the court has the power to compel appearances, still, you cannot compel the parties to talk, and the court, most certainly, cannot rule on “nothing” and there will no other choice than to strike out the case.

A rape victim who was raped 20 years ago finally has the courage to come out to the open, and the next thing the society throws at her is that that was a very long time ago, that there is no basis for coming out now, that it is only a waste of time, just like we have in a recent case in Nigeria, but for crying out loud, a crime is a crime even if it was committed a millennium ago, as long as the crime is recognized by the extant laws we have in Nigeria, as long as it has a legal basis for prosecution, it ought to and should be heard in the court of law.

Reasons why rape victims find it hard to come to the open had been explained above, and the fact that they are out now should be credited, even if it will result to mere technical exercise, it will still serve as a deterrent for intending criminals from actualizing their intentions.

It doesn’t matter how long ago a crime is committed, the fact remains that the crime was committed and must be punished under the law, accordingly and adequately.

Families and influential individuals have been heard of trying to cover up these cases by either bribing their way through or threatening the victims, even the prosecutors and the judges are not left out, these are the realities in Nigeria which needs to be checked if truly we want an end to this menace.

The kind of society we live in has made the prosecution of rape cases difficult, and for our girls to be free from these ridiculous acts, the society needs to change its attitude towards cases like this.

 THE LAW

There will be need to go a bit legal in this aspect, in order to analyze and expose the lacunas in our laws as well as pointing out how it has led to increase in rape cases.

There is no doubt that we have laws in place to sanction the offence of rape, but what we lack is the ability to implement these laws, and also, the procedures laid down to Implement the laws are quite discouraging.

Section 357 of the Criminal Code Act provides for the offence of rape, and under section 358 of the same act, the punishment is clearly stated,

“Anyone who commits the offence of rape is liable to imprisonment for life, with or without caning”

 The problem with this law lies in the proving of rape cases, that is, aside from the burden of reporting a rape case, prosecuting it, there is also the burden of proving it. One very disturbing aspect of proving a rape case is the “corroboration of evidence”, this means that for you to be successful in prosecuting a rape case, the prosecutrix {the victim} must also provide witnesses that will corroborate her evidences.

“In simple terms, “corroborative evidence entails introducing a witness (a third party), to testify to have seen the victim and the accused in the act”, seriously?!

In all practicality, what evidence of corroboration is really needed in the offence of rape, because in most cases, this act is done overtly, although, in some cases, the shout and call for assistance of the prosecutrix attract the public, that is not a regular phenomenon. After all, the prosecutrix herself may not like to be seen by the public when the act is being done ( part of the fear of being ridiculed by the society), she would rather prefer reporting the case after the act. And so, it is difficult to secure corroborative evidence for evidence from an eye witness. As a matter of fact, it is not a rape if there is no proof that the accused inserted his penis into the vagina of the prosecutrix, it is termed “attempt to commit rape”or in a more general term “sexual violence”, and such an offence, as provided for under section 359 of the criminal code act is punishable by 14 years imprisonment. Now, with the request of corroborative evidence, for the fact that this offence is committed overtly, there is every possibility that the accused must have withdrawn from the act before a witness gets to the scene, and as such it will be difficult to prove if it was a rape!

In the case of IKO V STATE (2001) FWLR (pt.69) 1161/(2001) 14 NWLR (Pt. 732) 221 in 2001, it was held that it is not the rule of law that an accused person in a charge of rape cannot be convicted on the uncorroborated evidence of the prosecutrix.

The proper direction is that it is not safe to convict on the uncorroborated evidence of the prosecutrix. The court may, after paying due attention to the warning, nevertheless, convict an accused if it is satisfied with the truth of her evidence. This court also held that the fact that the prosecutrix says that an accused inserted his penis into her vagina is not ipso facto (in itself) sufficient proof of penetration in the absence of corroboration.

Firstly, we have established the fact that corroborative evidence does not have a place in our laws, and as such it is not mandatory that there be a corroborative evidence to prove the accusation.

Secondly, application of this rule is only required in practice, which means after every adduced evidence, the court should not hold back on administering justice just because of the lack of corroborative evidence, there is also the medical evidence, though recourse to medical examination or evidence may be difficult if the act was done years back, which might result in embarking on mere technical exercise, but still, care should be taken and every necessary steps should be taken also to follow the case till the end.

 

It is very important to make this point known, one of the excuses (which of course amounts to using rubbish to justify nonsense) put forward by perpetrators is the misplaced consent, or misinterpretation of consent, just put it the way they do, “…she once said yes or I did not know she  wasn’t saying yes” or that they are ignorant of the real age, the law has put it expressly in section 363(a) and (b) of the criminal code act that

“In the case of proceedings in respect of an offence under the preceding section

        (a.) It is immaterial that the offender believed the girl to be of or above the age of sixteen years

        (b.) It is immaterial that the girl was taken with her own consent or at her own suggestion

So it is clear that there can never be an excuse, whatsoever, to justify rape.

In conclusion, our laws too have made the prosecution of rape cases difficult, thereby indirectly leading to the increase in the number of rape cases in the country. Our laws need to be made more flexible, though not too lax, so as to accommodate easy and effective prosecution of rape cases.

And the society needs to be enlightened about the effect of their attitude towards rape cases on the victims, instead of making them object of ridicule, they should be comforted and encouraged, and as such, others suffering in silence will have the courage to speak up and rape cases will be reduced to the lowest ebb.

Friday, July 17, 2020

 

TEMILOLUWA OLOWOYO

BELLADONISTEMILOLUWA@GMAIL.COM

08100031840