The organisation’s report reads that, “On December 19, 2011, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/170 to declare 11 October as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognise girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world.
The theme for this year’s celebration, “Innovating for girls’ education,” focuses on smart and creative use of technology, policies, partnerships and, most of all, the engagement of young people, themselves, as important tools for overcoming barriers to girls’ learning and achievement.
“In order to commemorate this event and honour the girl child this special day, NOI Polls Limited released one of the polls we conducted in the first quarter of the year 2013, which was focused on the challenges faced by the girl child in Nigeria and indeed the world over as a result of the incidence of rape among women in the society.
“The results released by NOIPolls Limited revealed that almost 3 in 10 Nigerians admitted to personally knowing someone who has been a victim of rape; citing stigmatisation as the main reason why many rape cases go unreported. The poll conducted on January 22, 2013 which sampled over 500 Nigerians across the six geo-political zones of the country, also urged the government to create public awareness against rape.”
Participants in the poll were asked six questions:
1. To what extent is rape predominant in the Nigerian society?
Majority of the participants, with 38 percent, believed that rape was predominant to a little extent; 29 percent said rape was predominant to a little extent; 23 percent said rape was predominant to a very little extent; 9 percent said it was predominant to a very large extent and one percent said that they believed rape was not at all predominant in Nigeria.
Overall, 99 percent of the participants believed that rape was predominant in Nigeria to varying degrees.
2. Do you personally know anyone that has been a victim of rape?
Close to three out of ten of the participants, with 29 percent, said they knew a person who had been a victim of rape; the majority of them with 68 percent, however, said that they did not personally know any rape victims, and three percent refused to answer the question.
3. What do you think is the prevalent cause of rape in the society?
34 percent of the participants believed that indecent dressing was the main cause of rape in the society; 18 percent believed unemployment was the cause; nine percent believed it was caused by lack of moral values and another nine percent believed it was caused by the inability to control sexual urges; seven percent said it was caused by faulty upbringing. Five percent of the participants believed rape was caused by illiteracy about women’s rights, ungodliness and bad company.
The report went on to state that the participants were asked open-ended questions and were allowed to give their own answers to the questions; as such, the organisers found the popularity of the indecent dressing factor rather troubling.
“This finding throws some light on a recent article by Amaka Okafor-Vanni in the Guardian newspaper UK titled ‘Nigeria has a rape culture too’. In the article, the author argued that if the India rape incident had taken place in Nigeria, nothing would have been done about it. Stressing that societal values suggest that a lady “must be told what to wear (or not wear) to limit the exposure to the men and when she doesn’t conform, and is assaulted or arrested, then she is responsible. In other words, if a woman’s body is visible, it ought to be available for sex or punished for this visibility.”
4. Do you agree that the majority of rape cases in Nigeria go unreported?
79 percent of the participants agreed that most rape cases in Nigeria were not reported while 15 percent disagreed and six percent refused to respond.
5. The 79 percent of the participants, who believed that rape cases went unreported were asked, “Why do you think the majority of rape cases go unreported?
36 percent believed that it was because the victims did not want to be stigmatised; 29 percent believed that it was because their families were trying to avoid disgrace; 16 percent said it was because the families did not believe that justice would be gotten; nine percent believed that it was because most victims were blamed for the abuse and five percent said it was because most victims were traumatised.
“These responses suggest that majority of rape cases go unreported due to pressures that seek to compel women to remain silent about rape in order to conform to the expected societal standards of women remaining chaste till marriage.
Similarly, the findings buttress recent media reports credited to Lagos lawyer, Festus Keyamo, stating that “the problem hindering prosecution of rape was the lack of desire by the victims to pursue the case to a logical conclusion… it is one thing to allege being raped and it is another to make a report and proceed with the prosecution of the offence.” As a result, the courts have become handicapped because victims and their families fail to report rape offences,” the report read.
6. What do you think the government should do to reduce the incidence of rape?
33 percent of the participants said the government should create public awareness against rape; 32 percent said the government should enforce the existing rape laws; 13 percent said the government should encourage the report of rape cases and nine percent said the government should promote the non stigmatisation of victims.
The report also stated that, “it is clear from the poll that rape is prevalent in Nigeria, despite the fact that majority of the cases go unreported. However, these findings highlight a serious societal problem requiring urgent attention from the government, human rights groups, CSOs, NGOs and religious bodies.
Although there’s no information on Nigeria featured in the UN rape statistics by country; this is a convenient smokescreen to bury the flurry of unreported rape cases taking place yearly in the country.
The government is therefore advised to take measures to reduce the incidence of rape, and aggressively enforcing existing rape laws. Also, rights groups, CSOs and NGOs are encouraged to create public awareness against rape, promote non-stigmatisation of victims and encourage the reporting of rape cases.”
This poll involved telephone interviews with 585 randomly selected Nigerians across the six geo-political zones, who have attained the legal age.
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