By Rose Moses
Grief and pain best define the feeling one goes through each time stories on rape of minors by men old enough to be their grandfathers are reported. Worst still is that such stories are not in short supply these days.

forcing me for sex

Indeed, cases of rape and child defilement have been gaining frightening dimensions of recent that one may not be wrong in describing the Nigerian child as endangered specie. Juxtapose this with the fact that most rape cases are hardly reported for fear of stigma and denial of justice, and the enormity of the problem in the society we live in will be staring you right on the face.

Morals have gone so low that oftentimes, the ungodly act is even perpetrated by blood relations. Victim’s fathers, stepfathers, brothers, cousins, and neighbours are often identified as culprits in the heinous act to the chagrin of any sane mind.

Research actually shows that more than 90 per cent of rape cases are committed by people well known to the victims. And while the stigma is enormous, the trauma cannot be restituted.

Recent abduction, rape and subsequent killing of an eight year old girl, named Chikamso Victory, by one Ifeanyi Dike, 23, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, brings to the front burner the need for all to insist on justice for victims.

Culprits must be seen to face the wrath of the law and all must be made to understand that the long arm of the law awaits any perpetrator.

Dike, although initially arrested by the Rivers state police command but now at large, having escaped from police custody, not only abducted, defiled and killed Chikamso, he went further to remove her private part, eyes, tongue and breast for ritual. And you wonder what kind of police custody will such a criminal escape from. The Nigerian Police Force, of course.

Across the country, innocent and helpless children are randomly abused, violated and defiled by the day with hardly any convictions made.

Not long ago, a couple in Kano state was arrested for brutally raping a toddler, with the wife helping in positioning the child for the husband. For such depraved act, a bail will be granted and little or nothing may be heard of the case afterwards.

Sometime ago in Lagos also, an 11-year-old reportedly narrated how her father took to sexually abusing her almost every night after his divorce from her mother, until she was so sore and had to confide in a neighbour that was close to her mother.

During the week, the Police Command in Niger state arrested an 18-year-old boy, Moses Lawal, for allegedly defiling a four-year-old girl in Minna that calls him ‘Uncle’.

In Gombe early last month, hundreds of women staged a peaceful protest against what they termed incessant cases of rape. The protest was informed by the death of a 14-year-old girl they claimed was a victim of rape in Anambra State. Similar protest also took place in Lagos same day.

In their schools, the children are not even safe from some of their teachers so depraved as to sexually abuse them. More worrisome is the age of the victims, usually from three to 11 years that you wonder what could attract any sane person to the extent of raping them?

Sadly, it seems the society is helpless in putting a check to the crime as in most cases, if ever the case goes that far, the accused are always set free by the courts for lack of evidence.

While some may argue that rapists are psychiatric cases that need to be subjected to evaluation and psychological therapy, rapists, really, don’t deserve to live. A case of rape should naturally attract capital punishment.

And just in case you think that is too harsh, rapist should be made to pay for their sins in equal measure. If a victim of rape has to live the rest of her life feeling that a part of her has been taken away from her or dead, why shouldn’t a rapist be castrated? Or have his manhood chopped off? Most victims of rape hardly recover from the trauma with some committing suicide along the way.

What the rising incidence of sexual abuse of minors in the country simply goes to tell is that our policies and laws are not working. While perpetrators of such wicked acts in other climes spend the rest of their lives in prison, what we have in Nigeria are some laws and policies that are not being implemented.

Which explains why in places like Kano, for instance, a noble walk/protest demanding an end to rape of babies said to be rampant in the area, is met with barricade by security personnel restraining,  instead of protecting protesters.

That the inhumane act still thrives in Nigeria is only because lawful convictions are hardly recorded which leaves victims unwilling to pursue their cases to logical conclusions.