 She only stepped out to go for a job interview, but didn't make it back alive. You know, Bongumorin's cops was found in a shallow grave at the very place where she had gone to seek a job. She sent the tweets six days ago saying she needed a job with a text, I am creative, really good in thinking critically and most importantly a fast learner, CV available on request. Someone replied to that tweet inviting her for an interview. That person is the man now suspected of raping her, killing her and burying her in a shallow grave. Women's rights advocate Mary Okoku joins us now via Zoom. Good morning, Mary Okoku. This issue really has become one to many. We've seen stories like this time and time again in our communities amplified especially on social media platforms like Twitter. Quickly, how do we make our society safe for women? Because when we listen to analysis of this issue, it seems the blame time and time again goes to the victim. People say why did the victim go out at this time of the night? Why is she dressed in this certain way? So really how can we make our society safer and begin to change the mindset of people away from blaming the victim in situations like this? First off, I think that what has happened to the young woman is really sad and unfortunate. How do we make our society safe? I think this whole issue of safety comes from a very long place. I think the most important thing is that we need to address a lot of these historical imbalances that we've come to know as a people where you begin to think that you're more powerful and you're stronger than the other gender and at the same time you are superior and you can actually take meme, a life that you did not create. That is where the safety questions should really start from. And beyond that, I think we also need to also argue about what safety... This is a country where even the man is not safe. There's hardly anybody that is safe. It looks as if we're even on everybody's on a queue waiting for the day it will be your turn. So whether it's in the church, it's in your home. I mean, these people, hoodlums, bandits, anybody, you can be maimed, you can be killed, you can be abducted at any point in time. But back to the issue at hand, we're talking about in Nia Bong. A young woman whose only crime is that she wanted to find a job and make a living and not tell the other way around where young girls that you see, some of them may just feel old. Let me go the lazy way out. This young woman was looking for a job. And the least society can do is to give her that job and not to take her life. We need to create safe spaces for women and girls. But most importantly, we need to create a country, a society that is safe for all, male, female. Everybody needs to feel safe in this country, in this society. Now coming to our girls, women and girls, when we are building infrastructure, there's several levels of safety. You need to ensure that even your critical infrastructure spaces, the buildings, the stores, the bus parks and bus stops and all that are well lit up. And they have concrete access spaces, points where people who you may assume are the vulnerable group can have clear access. Places lit up that people who are in danger can be found and seen that somebody's life is in danger. I don't really have an idea where this event took place. But I can only imagine that it may be once some desolate place, but the safety we should be looking around about, I'm talking about is also how community, how community can watch out for one another in the space where this crime, heinous crime was committed. There was still nobody who heard her. She didn't scream, apart from the friend who started screaming from Legos that her friend's life is in danger. Creating safe spaces also involves the mechanisms of our law enforcement agencies. There are cases of emergency. There are shouts of somebody's life is in danger and you are waiting for 24 hours before you get to work. These are some of the safety issues that we need to critically look into. Whether it is in the social safety, whether it is in the critical infrastructure area when we are building, when we are designing spaces that we need to make it safe for all concern, all citizens of the country. So for me, safety of our environment cuts across both infrastructure safety, space management and social safety where communities are looking up for each other and be able to scream when you see that somebody's life is in danger. Alright, where also do you think we need to fix with regards to our criminal justice system? I believe that for a long time there's not been enough examples made of some of these perpetrators and that has made it maybe a little easier for some of these crimes to continue to exist in our society. And so in the criminal justice aspect, what do you think must be fixed? What laws do you think must change? We have of course the violence against people's prohibition act, some of all of those things in existence but I don't know how effective they have been since their existence. So in the criminal justice direction, what do you think must change and must be fixed? Good. I want to say that in the criminal justice sector, I think that the VAP Act, Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act is one fantastic law in Nigeria that every state really need to domesticate. I was part of a team that did a national research on the successes and challenges of the VAP Act, the implementation of this act and their successes. And it's interesting that some of the states that this act has been domesticated, that they are seeing increasing successes. We're not yet there, but you can see that because people know and understand that this law is in place, it begins to serve as a deterrent somehow that you know that when you rape a woman, you will face the law. There's 14 years jail time for you and all of some other punishment, even though some of us think that the punishments according to people of some of these gender-based violence are not enough, you know? But our justice system is a place we really also need to look at critically in terms of creating that safe space for women and girls. Just like I want to touch on the issue of timeline. You see, like the police have this timeline you want with 48 hours or 24 hours before you can step in and do your job even when a life is at stake. Even in our criminal justice system, you see somebody who has an issue of gender-based violence or criminal case and abduction or rape and any of those things. You are seeing them, the victims, appearing in court prosecution lingers on for so many years. This is one area that I think that we need to look at. Timeline, it will linger for so many years that after some time they tell you it has become starting back. Crazy, isn't it? What we need to say, just like this justice system have made provision for elections when there is an election, you have a certain period of timeline where every case concerning election of that year must end. We should bring that to the court when in terms of dealing with issues of gender-based violence and getting justice for victims of crimes such as rape, such as molestations, abuse, domestic violence and all of that. Any crime, really. We could go on about this issue but there is an underlying issue to this issue in it. We know from what the police say that they uncovered a shallow grey with other bodies there and the reports have been saying these are unverified. What we've seen on social media is that this particular guy who kidnapped, raped and murdered any is in the business of doing this. He basically reaches out to young girls in collaboration with his sister, his family. His family is in the business. What they do is they lure innocent victims and they kill them and harvest their organs. What do you have to say about this perceived organ harvesting? We've seen this news time and time again in Nigeria but it seems like this is confirmed right now in Aqaibom. Just mentioned that it's still been investigated and some of these are still just social media speculations. They are not verified yet. But the police did say that they found her body and she was mutilated. Go ahead, Mary. From seeking for a job, there's a job offer being raped being violated and then killed buried in a shallow grave. Just look at the whole process and series of events that went on. So it takes a community, it takes a whole family and that report, it may be an allegation but there is some reasonable level of truth if you look it clearly at me. How can all of these events have happened and nobody could say, call in the police and say this is what is going on. And you can see the process through which even the culprit was found. It takes the effort of the community. And then I think that this country, this society need to pay more attention into how we deal with cases of this nature. You have seen serial killers, serial rapies, serial pedophiles both caught free in our court of law in our courtrooms. And it shouldn't be like that because when you let go one criminal you also put the life of another citizen at risk because he's going to come back and rape, kill another person. So we need to begin to see how we can flag all of these criminals and make sure that even in the neighborhood where they live or the ones who did not get what do you call it, capital punishment if they have to still exist in our society we owe everybody in that community a duty to flag the one where that person lives and say a pedophile lives in this space. What you need to do that is because people who live in that environment need to know that their movement went to go out and all of that. There is a questionable character in your neighborhood. You are not doing it because you want to name and shame alone. You also want to protect the life of other people and I think that government needs to really go deep into this matter and bring everybody to good. Father, sister, brother, everybody but even the neighbors that would have noticed something finicky going on and said nothing. Everybody is up for people. Thank you very much. It feels good having this conversation and we hope that we can have more and more to find a way to make our society and for everybody in general. Thank you for joining us. Absolutely, absolutely. Thanks for having me. This is where we wrap up the breakfast this morning. Thank you so much for starting our Monday with us. 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