Gender-Based violence on women and girls are rising because of low prosecution of perpetrators, Emeritus Dean of Law at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Prof. Joy Ezeilo (SAN) has submitted.
Ezeilo made the submission in Abuja while speaking at the launch of three books, ‘Effects of Bwari conflict and Enugu sit-at-home on women’, ‘Experiences and conditions of domestic workers in North West Nigeria’ and ‘Impact of the farmer-herder crisis on women and girls in IDP camps’ by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (RSL) West Africa.
She explained: “Offenders get away with their crimes due to a lack of due diligence in investigation and prosecution, evidence, and witness support, including delays and corruption in the administration of the criminal justice system. Victims have been re-victimised and doubly jeopardised by society and in the justice delivery ecosystem.”
Ezeilo insisted that lack of accountability, effective and responsive support services for victims and survivors, as well as low prosecution of cases also encourages impunity in committing violence-related offences against the female gender.
The don also blamed the criminal justice ecosystem for not doing enough to protect victims, stating: “In the criminal justice ecosystem, police and other administrators of justice often fail to protect victims of sexual and gender-based violence by dismissing the seriousness of such violence.”
The law teacher observed that the emergence of Boko Haram has escalated sexual and gender-based violence in the form of sexual slavery, abduction, kidnapping and trafficking of girls as mercenaries and comfort women to provide sex for the insurgents, forced marriage to terrorists and ‘sex-for-food’, saying these untoward practices are having a significant impact on women, children and persons with disabilities, resulting in huge unmet justice needs.
She lamented that cases of sexual assault continue to be trivialised, and the ‘blaming the victim’ mantra still very much alive. Ezeilo stressed that the culture of shaming and stigmatisation worsens the silence around reporting and prosecuting cases of sexual and gender-based violence.
On the impacts of violent activities such as banditry, farmer-herder clashes, and sit-at-home in the Southeast on women and girls, the academic argued that women not only lose economically, but also lose their families in the ensuing violence.
Her words: “Evidence has established that in all these attacks, women and children suffer all kinds of abuses such as the loss of sources of subsistence occupation, maybe farming or livestock rearing. This results in family instability and the creation of a mass population of widows because their husbands are killed in the violent conflict. This increases the inability of children to attend schools because they are rendered homeless and living in IDP camps.
“The orgy of violence that is rocking some parts of the country has resulted in food insecurity driving food inflation to about 40 per cent.”On his part, the regional representative of Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung West Africa, Dr. Claus Dieter Konig, said the recommendations by could be adopted to alleviate the sufferings of victims.
