About 269 minors and infants, aged one to 16 years, were reportedly defiled between January and December in Ogun State, last year. According to data released by the Directorate of Women Affairs in the Ogun State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, 52 of the victims were below eight years.
Director of Women Empowerment in the ministry, Wonuola Kazzim, explained that some of the victims were babies less than two months old, who were molested by men in their 50s and 60s.
Kazzim said 16 persons among suspects arrested have been prosecuted for alleged molestation and sentenced to seven years imprisonment. She lamented that lack of forensic evidence to prove sexual assault in courts pose a great challenge to victims’ ability to get justice. According to her, this development discourages many victims from speaking out .
She, however, said the state government had embarked on a sensitisation campaign in public schools and markets to encourage parents, guardians and victims to report cases of rape and defilement of minors to the government. She also called on the state government to establish a special court to fast-track the prosecution of sex offenders, and get justice for victims.
“The likely punishment for offenders in the state should be life jail term or 14 years imprisonment, but since most of the cases lack forensic evidence, the court is always constrained to give lesser sentences,” she added.
Reacting, a medical expert at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Idi-Aba, Rotimi Akintunde, blamed the menace on undetected historical psychotic illnesses from molesters.
Akintunde described the molestation of a minor or teenager by an adult as a psychiatric disorder, saying no sane mind would have sexual arousal for a minor.
He said: “It is a psychiatric disorder. They must be having paedophilia. It is child abuse and must be severely dealt with. No matter how much we condemn or prosecute them for what they have done, we need to also rehabilitate them.
“It is not enough to get them arrested and charged to court; we need to refer them to psychiatric homes for proper rehabilitation. They are social deviants.”
