Group launches campaign against rape

Abuja

Global Rights Nigeria has launched ‘Rape is a crime’ whistle blowing campaign as part of efforts to curb increasing menance of sexual violence in the country.
The campaign is structured in such a way that survivors or friends of survivors of sexual violence could log on to: www.rapeisacrime.org to report the case anonymously so that they can get the needed help, either medically or with law enforcement agencies.
The Country Director, Global Right Nigeria Abiodun Bayewu-Teru during the launch of the whistle blowing campaign at the University of Abuja yesterday said sexual violence has continued unabaited because the perpetrators get away with the crime.
She explained that the theory behind ‘rape is a crime’ campaign is to encourage people to speak about it saying that girlsore people speak, the more offenders will be punished and the more people realize that its a crime and would be dealt with.
She said “the system would begin to highlight what the issues are and it would be more difficult for offenders to hide, this would be directly connected to law enforcement and it would be more difficult for sexual offenders to hide”.
Disclosing that offenders can get as much as a life imprisonment, Bayewu-Teru, said the case would be dealth with at the highest level of the police force.
The Brand Ambassador of the campaign Tope Tedella who is also a Nollywood actor lamented that one out of every 4 girls, is a victim and out of every 10 boys, one is a victim of sexual violence before age 18.
While saying that rape is the worst crime that could happen to anybody, Tedella added that corruption is not just about finance there can also be corruption of the soul.
The Program developers Isabel Thornton and Matthew Mahmoudi, both graduates of Cambridge University USA said they have been working with Global Rights for the past one and half years to create an application that would make access to justice easier.

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