10-year-old rape survivor bled for three days, court hears

A medical doctor has testified that a 10-year-old girl who was allegedly raped bled for three days following the attack.

Dr Edith Onovore told the Special Offences Court in Ikeja that the girl’s underwear and sanitary pad were soaked with blood when she was examined at Epe General Hospital.

The defendant, Samuel Olaide, is accused of defiling the minor in an uncompleted building in Epe on April 19, 2022. He is charged with unlawful defilement, which contravenes Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2015.

Onovore told the court that the girl’s vagina was red and bruised, and her hymen was missing. She said the girl told her that Olaide, a neighbour, had dragged her from her mother’s shop, gagged her with a handkerchief, and taken her to the uncompleted building where he raped her.

“The general observation was that there was no show of pain, the hymen was missing, the sanitary pad she came with was already soaked in blood and her pants as well,” Onovore testified.

“Penetration into the vagina can cause the hymen to be missing, forcefully putting a hand into the vagina can cause bruises and the hymen missing.”

The doctor added that the girl’s vagina had been “forcefully and brutally penetrated” and that there were signs of “repeated force trauma and too much bleeding.”

Onovore said she had also examined Olaide for HIV.

Under cross-examination, the doctor confirmed that she had examined the girl three or four days after the alleged incident. She said that the girl’s young age would have made the trauma to her vagina more severe.

“The younger the child, the more traumatic for the vagina because of the size,” she explained. “In this circumstance, being that the victim was 10 years old, the extent of the trauma was much, even up to the time I was examining her, there was still blood and bruises.”

Justice Rahman Oshodi adjourned the trial to February 11, 2025.