What to Do If You've Been Sexually Assaulted

The article reports about the epidemic of rape in Nigeria. Research by the United Nations indicates that one in every four boys and one of ten girls under the age of eighteen years are victims of rape. The Health experts have indicated that more rape victims, especially women and children, are talking about the trauma, with sigma associated with it subsiding. The article reports about a three-year-old girl who was raped three times by a 44-year-old neighbor. The victim lived with her grandmother, who was reluctant to report the sexual assault case to the police. The grandmother indicated that she did not believe in justice as she was poor, and no one would believe her. The grandmother fled her place after the second attack to Salama Center seeking help. Another case reported was a rape survivor in her late 30s while asleep with her husband and child (Agiriga, 2019). The abductors took the woman to the forest, raped her, and asked for ransom till it was paid, that is when she gained her freedom. Another report is of a young ten-year-old girl raped by a 29-year-old neighbor. Allegedly, the man lured the girl to run an errand for him, then staffed her with a hijab and violated her. The element of the crime can be seen from the facts of the three rape cases. The criminal act is a sexual assault against the two girls, the woman and harm element was the effects such as stigma experienced by the victims. The causation of the crimes was the vulnerability of the women, considering that two were young girls while the woman was kidnapped when asleep, thus could not defend themselves (Agiriga, 2019). The increased cases of rape in Nigeria caught the authority interest, and Mr. Yakubu Sabo, the public relations officer at Kaduna state, indicated that lack of investigating rape cases is due to lack of reporting. 

Reference 

Agiriga, G. (2019, August 23). 'Epidemic' of Rape Assailed in Nigeria. Retrieved November 15, 2019, from https://www.voanews.com/africa/epidemic-rape-assailed-nigeria.