One country that records high incidence of sexual violence in Nigeria. Sadly, out of the 2,250 reported cases of rape in Lagos within a two-and-a-half-year period, only 18 resulted in convictions, according to rape crisis centre Mirabel.
Many women and children are sexually violated at home, school and even workplaces with their attackers often going free without any punishment.
Eurel Nwafor, Oluwaseun Osowobi and Brenda Uphopho are three of the many women in Nigeria who have fallen victims to rapists and have to live with the scar for the rest of their lives.
Chef, Eurel Nwafor says told CNN she was raped in August 2017 when some opposition union members stormed her former place of work.
She said one of them dragged her from her office whilst beating her. She begged them to allow her go ease herself as she was pressed but they refused.
“When they finally permitted me to go and ease myself, the person who dragged me out of the office followed me… he ripped my cloth apart and..,” her emotions wouldn’t allow her complete the sentence.
Founder of Stand to End rape, Oluwaseun Osowobi was raped by someone she used to call a friend when she accepted a lift from him in 2011.
Oluwaseun who believes she was targeted because she refused to register underage voters during a local election said her attacker told her before the attack that “we are not happy with you and we’re going to deal with you”.
She tried getting out, but the car was locked when she finally got the opportunity to escape, the long braids she had, marred her escape as her attacker pulled it to drag her back.
She said, “he stepped on the braid and I opened the car and I run… he pulled me back by my braids and dragged me on the floor and this man violated me”.
She said all her pleas for mercy fell on death ears. The trauma has made it impossible for her to put on braids since that day.
For Theatre producer, Brenda Uphopho she has been raped three times by different men with the first one happening when she was just five years old.
“For a long time, a lot of those memories were even suppressed until I started working on speaking out around sexual violation, sexual abuse for women in Lagos,” she said.
She added that when she was at the university she was beaten and sexually assaulted when she found herself alone with a stranger at a party
Rape is a conscious process of intimidation where perpetrators leave their victims, usually women and children, in a state of constant fear and devalued.
It is a crime which stigmatises the emotions, a crime of insult, oppression and revenge that needs to be punished but most rapists get away with the crimes.
Rape and other forms of sexual harassment need the urgent and serious attention of family, institutions, civil society groups, government and the international community if we really want to ensure a violence-free society for all.
