 April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It's a time set aside to inform, empower communities to stand up against sexual abuse of all kinds. Rights Advocates say Nigeria has a poor record of persecution of sex offenders. And during the coronavirus-induced lockdown last year, the federal government recorded an increase in domestic sex abuse. Joining us this morning to take a look at it is a lawyer and executive director at Gender Mobile Initiative, which aims to increase the reportage of gender-based violence and reduce the incidences of the crime. And she is Omo Wumi Ogunlutimi. Good morning. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. All right. First of all, well done with the work you do at Shooting Initiative. And I wanted to ask you first of all, let's talk about the statistics of this situation in Nigeria. Why don't we talk about sexual assault cases in a country? Okay. So Nigeria has, I mean, recently, there has been a significant uptake in the prevalence of sexual and gender-based violence. But in general, in the last 10 years, of course, we have recent statistics that shows that one in five women experience sexual violence, will experience sexual violence in their lifetime. And of course, six out of every 10 children experience sexual, physical or emotional abuse before the age of 18. And we also have statistics to show that out of 40 such cases, only two are reported. And of course, the statistics go on and on in terms of attrition of cases, in terms of number of cases that get reported, that get investigated, that get prosecuted, and of course, cases that we secure convictions. What is the, we have a bill that was passed, I believe, in 2020 after the sexual grades report. There's also the sexual assault bill that was passed. How well do you think our laws are doing in helping to curb the prevalence of sexual assault in Nigeria? Do you think that we need to do better with our laws? Or are they enough? So Nigeria has an avalanche of legal policy framework to address the old spectrum of sexual and gender-based violence. But we need to do a lot more in terms of demonstrating the necessary political will. And I'll give you an interesting example. Nigeria is a signatory to several international protocols from CEDAW to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on women's rights, even the Nigerian constitution, for example, which is our ground norm, where we have relevant provisions on right to dignity of women and even persons in general. But in terms of demonstrating the political will, you'd realize that a lot more still needs to be done. We have the most revolutionary piece of legislative instrument in the history of Nigeria, which is the Violence Against Persons Prehibition Act, enacted as a national act of parliament in 2015. So far, we've had 19 states locally adopt that piece of legislation. And we have 36 states plus the FCC in Nigeria, making 37. So which means that, as a country, we have the necessary legal framework, but the political will is missing in terms of implementation. And if you look at Nigeria, we have the criminal code, we have the penal code. Legal state has a criminal law. Legal state also provides for some patterns of sexual assault, like rape, like indecence assault. But of course, that law in itself has territorial limitation. It's only applicable in legal states. And then the VAP Act, like I did say, then we also have the child rights law, which of course is also applicable in some states. I think we have about 10 states in Northern Nigeria yet to domesticate the Child Rights Act, as a local law. So in general, to say that we need to do a lot more as a nation in terms of demonstrating the requisite political will to implement these laws, to put in place systems and structures that would also complement the existing legal and policy framework. All right, Omaome, indeed we have lots of laws that we can simply just implement and make our lives better. Well, let's talk about the hurdles, the challenges to implementing these laws. First of all, we have the culture of silence. Isn't that right? That makes rape the most underreported crime in the world. We also have the attitude of police officials where you go report a sexual assault case, a rape case, and they tell you it's a family affair. I mean, we've heard this time and time again from police operatives and no cases of persecution. Help us break this down and what we can do to surmount them. Okay, so you mentioned it. We have legal barriers. And most importantly, when you talk about legal barriers, you need to talk about the old spectrum of our legal system where we do not have a unified legal framework. You know, when you look at rape, you look at innocent assault, you look at sexual harassment. It's a pattern of discrimination. And as a human being, you should have rights. You should have your human rights, regardless of your location. Human rights are rights that you enjoy by virtue of being a human being. It shouldn't be by virtue of, you know, being domiciled in Southwest Nigeria or domiciled in Northeast or domiciled in Northwest. So which means that because we do not have a unified legal framework, then we have a really huge gap to fill in there. Second also is, you know, to look at our criminal justice administrative system. Do we have a court system that encourage people to, you know, speak out? Do we have a grievance redress our mechanism that encourage victims to speak out? You see a lot of rape cases linger on in courts for so longer time. You see rape victims come to court to recount their experiences in open courts. This old gamut is, you know, an hurdle that continues to perpetrate the culture of silence, such that even when people, you know, come forward to speak and then recommend some of those cases in court, halfway victims bail out because they have victimized the second time. And when you report cases and it's been persecuted and then the conviction rate is low also because the evidentiary boarding to prove rape is huge. When, you know, the constitution says that there is presumption of innocence, which means you're innocent until proven guilty. It puts the burden to establish that rape has been committed under prosecution. And people a lot of times victims are not aware of, you know, some precautions to take so that they can be able to establish that an act of rape has been committed. Also, we have existing lacuna in our law. Look at this pattern of sexual assault, that's sexual harassment. A lot of times we have normalized patterns of social behavior that they have become part of our everyday lives that when these things happen, we are not able to fit this experience as a pattern of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment has assumed really critical dimensions in the workplace in the environment of learning that the culture of silence around sexual harassment continue to thrive also because people lack confidence in the system. So it's an old gamut of, you know, the systems, the structures that are available. So which means that we need a lot, we need to do a lot around system change. We need systemic change. We need structural change if people need to come forward to speak out more because this would also show that they have confidence in the system. I want you to speak on things as a nation, things that you feel we need to learn and unlearn if we are getting serious about, you know, ending or reducing sexual assault in Nigeria. What things do you think we need to learn or unlearn as a people? So we need to understand that, you know, women are human beings. They occupy equal status as men. We need to demystify or, you know, basically diffuse power hierarchies. In environment, even in our local communities, you see that there is this asymmetrical power relations that continue to subjugate women. We need to understand that women are human beings who have equal rights as men. We also need to deconstruct the norms, the norms and practices, cultural practices that continue to subjugate women. We need to stop justifying, you know, some of this meat as justification for rape or patterns of sexual assault. A lot of times people advance narrative around indistinct dressing as a justification for rape, you know, rather than advanced conversations around appropriate and inappropriate dressing. So we also need to put young people at the center of prevention and response efforts. We need to bear in mind that young people could be bystanders, could be perpetrators, could be victims. So it's very important that young people, you know, at the center of prevention and response efforts, they have the energy, they have, you know, the skills in terms of leveraging technology. We also need to do a lot more around awareness. There cannot be prevention without awareness. People need to be more aware. People need to know what sexual harassment is. People need to know what indistinct assault is. People need to understand what constitutes rape, how to establish that an offense of rape has been committed. So basically, we really need to do a lot more around raising awareness. All right, Oma Omi, you mentioned this, you know, it's the second time you're bringing this up, about how to protect evidence and prove that rape has been, you know, committed. Can you give us details about that? Sure. So if you're a victim of rape, the most important thing that you need to know is that, you know, we need to, there needs to be a collection of specimen, you know, for forensic analysis to establish that a rape incident occurred. And most times when victims experience rape, the first thing they do is to go and shower. A lot of people are not aware that when you do that, you destroy evidence. So we need to do a lot more awareness around this for people to understand that, you know, you need to actually collect specimen so that we can preserve evidence. And of course, at the point of bringing this to some victims don't, are not even able to identify who their abuser is. So for some people that gangraped or maybe at the point of raping them, you know, they had their faces covered, all of these would also, you know, help the court or the prosecution to establish that this perpetrator committed this act of rape. And of course, in terms of accessing a range of integrated social services like psychosocial support, you know, trauma cancelling, people also need to understand that as a rape victim, most times people live most part of their life being traumatized because of their experience. And there are platforms to also access a range of some of the support services. NAPTIP is the duty bearer specifically mandated to provide this, but also organizations like Tender Mobile, Tridexx Lab, Brave Art Initiative. There are lots of organizations like that in Nigeria that are providing a range of services to ensure that, you know, victims are able to yield from this, you know, experience. So if some, if, you know, Son gets raped, what do you suggest should be her next cause of action, her next steps? So when you get raped, you know, the first point of action should be to visit a medical facility. After visiting the medical facility and they take down your report, you can then head out to the police station. Okay. Okay, all right. Also, let us also, because that's one of the reasons I asked about things that we need to learn and unlearn in our society. There's a lot of things that happen in the workplace. A lot of things that happen in our teacher institutions that, you know, for a lot of Nigerians is normal. And you also mentioned earlier that women are judged based on what they wear and some of all those things that happen in our society. So what would you, you know, say that, you know, needs to also be done to, you know, create more awareness into what exactly is sexual assault, even if it doesn't get to a point, the point of rape and penetration. What would you say needs to be done to create more awareness with regards what we define as sexual assault in our workplaces and in our teacher institutions and across, you know, our societies? So I think the most important thing, which would also show that, you know, the leadership has the political way is to have comprehensive policies. So it would interest you that, you know, other patterns of sexual assaults, outside rape are quite trivialized. When you look at sexual harassment, it's very rampant in the workplace. And when you talk about sexual harassment, you talk about the hostile work environment. You talk about quiproco, which is the least for that, which has to do with, you know, using power to import sexual requirements into the workplace or into environment of learning, popularly known as sexual grade, you know. So when you look at those patterns of sexual assault, they are very rampant but they have gained little or no attention over the years. And we need to do a lot more with putting policies in place. Nigeria today has no comprehensive policy on sexual harassment. The national industrial court has had to rely heavily on international treaties. And of course, you know, some court rules to decide cases, over 10 cases on sexual harassment. Environment of learning, we know that recently the National Assembly revisited the Anti-Sexual Arrestment Bill in 2019. And that bill has been approved by the Senate. We're currently awaiting the concurrence of the House of Reps and subsequently the Presidential Assent. So and this bill was met with, you know, Steve resistance. But a lot of advocacy is ongoing and that's why I also have to talk about advocacy. We need to do a lot more around advocacy calling the attention of actors, duty bearers and of course, persons who are like the direct target. We need to do a lot more around social mobilization. In the environment of learning, we need to build the capacity of students. You'd realize that a lot of times in solidarity with their users, so come syndrome-stepping and students who have been victims then begin to disapprove of the guts of their colleagues to report such cases. We need to initialize prevention. We need to set up Anti-Sexual Arrestment Committee, build their capacity to be able to address some of those issues. We need to ensure that our environment of learning and the workplace is safe. We need to put in place reporting structures. Obviously, there's a lot of work. In a few days' time, we're going to belong to you. Apologies, Momie. There's so much work that needs to be done and I hope that we can, you know, with these conversations, take it step by step, you know, and, you know, give it a time frame with which we can now look back and say, hey, this is what we've achieved with regard sexual assault in the last five, 10 years and this is, you know, how much of a better place that we are in. So thank you very much for sharing with us this morning and for, you know, your time for speaking with us. Yes, thank you very much. You know, keep up the good work that you do. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. All right, stay with us. We are moving away from Sexual Assault Awareness Month just to remind everyone that it's a conversation that is ongoing and should never stop until we see a better society. And we're going to be talking about sports next, where the European League was assaulted or almost assaulted by the Super League. What? We're going to be talking next about how the Champions League was brutalized or almost, you know, kicked out of the conversation. Next, we're having a sports journalist join us this morning on the program. Stay with us here on The Breakfast.