The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, NAPTIP, has revealed that presently young boys in Nigeria are more vulnerable to rape than girls.
Dame Julie Okah-Donli, the director-general of the agency said this is because people tend to focus more on girls not realising that the rape of boys is on the rise.
She said that it is really annoying the number of silly videos being shared and reposted of child pornography on the internet, promising that she will arrest anyone that shares such video or stigmatizes against victims.
Okah-Donli added that she is not an advocate of capital punishments such as the death penalty for rapists because it will make perpetrators more brutal, because they will not want to leave witnesses to their crimes.
The DG said this on Saturday, June 27, 2020, in Abuja at the flag-off of the ‘Cover me’ campaign aimed at exposing perpetrators of child abuse, advocate for stricter punishment for rapists, and advocate for stronger mechanisms for preventing approach.
She said, “I do not advocate for capital punishment of death sentence because it will make rapists become brutal because they will not want to leave witnesses and it will also encourage jungle justice with people using it to accuse and k**l people falsely.
“Boys are more vulnerable to rape because we tend to focus more on girls so we need to focus on all our children. Now you see a lot of silly videos with people sharing and reposting, If you send it to me I will arrest you for child pornography, anyone who stigmatizes against victims will be punished. We need to make people know that we are serious.
“During the lockdown, a lot of things were revealed to us, we realized that most of the reports we got were from observant neighbors and not parents.”
Ugo Nwafor, the coordinator Cover me the project, explained that his organization has set up a one million man online petition to implement capital punishment to stop rape, child defilement, and child abuse in the country.
He said that capital punishment is implemented as a curb rape, defilement, and abuse by 60%.
He said that the cover me project will also embark upon the distribution of clothing items to children in rural areas all over the country because they believe that the constant nudity of little children in rural areas might also encourage pedophiles.
Source: The Nation
