By Ezrel Tabiowo
Abuja
The Senate, yesterday, urged the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris to investigate and prosecute all cases of sexual abuse, violation and violence in line with the provisions of extant laws of Nigeria.
It also mandated its Committees on Health, Women Affairs and Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters to engage relevant stakeholders with a view to resolving cases of sexual violation in the country.
The upper chamber, while urging the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and paramilitary agencies to establish functional help desk to provide assistance and support to victims as well as handle such cases, asked all heads of courts to revisit the sentencing policy on all sexual offences and domestic violence to address the seriousness it deserved.
The resolutions by the senate were reached following a motion considered, and entitled, “urgent need to investigate the alarming rate of rape and sexual assault against women, children and vulnerable people across the country”, sponsored by the Deputy Leader of the Senate, Bala Ibn Na’Allah (APC, Kebbi South).
He pointed out that the sexual offenders, whom he described as predators, constituted serious security threat to the larger segment of the society, which he also said were highly underreported in the media.
The lawmaker recalled that in an effort to effectively tackle this problem, the 7th Senate had passed the Violent against Persons (Prohibition) VAPP Act 2015 while the 8th Senate passed the Sexual Offences in Tertiary Institutions Prohibition Bill 2016 to combat these perversions.
All the senators who made contributions overwhelmingly supported the motion, stressing the need for the menace to be combated headlong because of its negative socio-psychological impact on the victims and the country in general.
Senator Ben Bruce, Biodun Olujimi, Enyinnaya Abaribe and Ali Wakili, while condemning the act of rape, advocated for promulgation of stringent laws that could eliminate the problem of rape and other forms of sexual perversions from the system.
They, however, noted that one of the reasons the fight against sexual crimes had not yielded the desired result was because the law enforcement officers were usually accomplices in the crimes, calling for a change of attitude by the authorities involved.
