Shock As Two Brothers R*pe A 4-year-old Girl In Lagos

According to a report by Daily Trust, two brothers have been dragged to court in Lagos.

They were arraigned before a Yaba magistrates’ court in Lagos for r*ping a four-year-old girl.

The brothers, said to be 10 and 15 years old, were said to have had carnal knowledge of their neighbour’s four-year-old daughter but the police did not disclose their identities because they are minors.

According to the police, Daily Trust reports, the suspects were arrested after the Commissioner of Police (CP) was petitioned by a group, Aunt Landa’s Bethel Foundation, accusing the minors of r*pe and defilement.

In the petition, the foundation said the brothers lured the victim into their parents’ apartment where they took turns r*ping her.

The prosecutor, Thomas Nurudeen, pleaded with the court to refer the case file to the Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for legal advice as the alleged offenders are minors.

The Magistrate, P. E. Nwaka, ordered that the two brothers should be remanded at the children’s remand home.

He directed the prosecutor to duplicate their file and send it to the DPP for advice before adjourning.

A November 2021 report by Amnesty International says endemic r*pe is under-reported in Nigeria due to stigma and victim blaming.

It says police failure to investigate sexual violence deprives survivors of justice.

“11,200 r*pe cases reported last year (2020), including children r*ped to death,” the report says.

“Despite the Nigerian authorities’ declaration of a ‘state of emergency’ on sexual and gender-based violence, r*pe persists at crisis levels with most survivors denied justice, r*pists avoiding prosecution, and hundreds of cases of r*pe going unreported due to pervasive corruption, stigma and victim blaming, Amnesty International said in a report published today. 

“R*pe continues to be one of the most prevalent human rights violations in Nigeria. Following the lockdown imposed to tackle the spread of Covid-19 in 2020, there was an upsurge in cases of r*pe. In June 2020, Nigerian police said they had recorded 717 incidents of r*pe between January and May last year.”

In April 2020, Nigeria’s Minister of Women Affairs said at least 3,600 cases of r*pe were recorded during the lockdown, while the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) received 11,200 reported cases of r*pe over the whole of 2020. 

“As reports of r*pe escalated across Nigeria, state governors declared a ‘state of emergency’ on r*pe and gender-based violence in June 2020. They also promised to set up a sex offenders register. But over a year since their declaration, nothing has changed, as more cases of r*pe have been reported,” the report adds.