Trends of Rape and Sexual Violence Against Women

“Disturbing trends of rape and sexual violence against women and girls at the hands of police and security forces” have been revealed in Nigeria.

The testimony is part of a report on sexual abuse of women by Nigerian security forces, which according to Amnesty could almost be termed systematic.

Rape by police and security forces is endemic in Nigeria as is the abject failure of the Nigerian authorities to bring perpetrators to justice, the human rights group said at the press conference.

They called on Nigeria’s federal and State authorities to urgently overhaul the legal and social systems that tolerate widespread rape and sexual violence against women and girls across the country.

Amnesty launched the report “Nigeria: Rape – the silent weapon”, which draws upon the testimony of survivors and “identifies disturbing trends of rape and sexual violence against women and girls at the hands of police and security forces.”

The report argues that these acts are compounded and encouraged by failures at every level of the judicial system and persist because of consistent failure by the state to tackle the abuse of women and girls by the police and security forces.

Whether abused by police, security forces or in their homes and community, the report outlines the enormous difficulties faced by women and girls who are raped or sexually abused in Nigeria.

“The harsh reality is that if you are a woman or a girl in Nigeria who has suffered the terrible experience of being raped, your suffering is likely to be met with intimidation by the police, indifference from the state and the knowledge that the perpetrator is unlikely to ever face justice,” said Kolawole Olaniyan of Amnesty.

The group further outlined how rape is used by the police as a means of torture to extract confessions from suspects in custody and how women and girls rarely seek prosecution for fear of intimidation by the police and rejection by their families and community.

The report outlines serious obstacles to the reporting and prosecution of rape in Nigeria, including inadequate training of police that results in the humiliation and intimidation of the victims and police investigations hampered by corruption and incompetence.