Government have been urged to implement harsher penalties on child rapists, their accomplices, parents, care-givers, other individuals and organisations whose negligence or actions encourage those who commit the crime.
Opinion Moulders also emphasized that
serial offenders should on conviction be put away for decades or for life.
Rape crimes across all ages are on the high side and so is sexual defilement of children which appears to be rising even faster as reports of child rape surface with alarming frequency across the country.
Among several cases recorded across the Country, In April, a 70-year-old man, Usman Ibrahim, was reported to have raped two minors, aged four and seven, in Jimeta, Yola North Local Government Area, Adamawa State, Ibrahim reportedly lured the girls into his room and abused them while on their way to their extra lesson class.
In August, news outlets reported how a four-year-old pupil of a private school in Ajah, Lagos, was allegedly raped by one James, a security guard of the school.
Likewise, A 37-year-old farmer, Joseph Agbomu, who had defiled his neighbour’s six-year-old daughter in Ondo State, was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2023 by an Akure High Court.
The urgent call for this barbaric behaviour to be curbed with stronger actionable policies, including legislative act, tougher law enforcement and social intervention schemes to protect minors, women and other vulnerable groups from sexual predators have been put on the front bunner once again.
Amidst cases of rising physical abuses, molestations, sexual malpractices, cultural abnormalities amongst other crimes in Ondo State, Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu on 15th July 2021 signed to law the Violence Against Person Prohibition, VAPP LAW in pursuant of Section 46 of the Nigerian Constitution which gave birth to Ondo State Board of Agency Against Gender Based Violence, OSAA-GBV.
Reacting to this, The Senior Special Assistant to Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu on Gender, Research & Documentation, Mrs. Tope Daniyan said the State Government is doing all it can to put an end to the menace.
Executive Secretary of OSAA-GBV, Bola Afolabi noted that the agency has taken not less than 20 cases of sexual abuse on minor since its establishment, in 2021
Afolabi reiterated that the agency takes up any reported sexual abuse cases towards protecting the minor from any harm and ensure that perpetrators face the full wrath of the law.
A Legal practitioner, Dele Kuboye said there are several laws in the Nigeria Constitution ranging from Child rights law, Penal code, Criminal code, VAPP law among others to protect children from abuse
Others seek measure on how to put an end to sexual abuse on minor and rid the society of crimes.