[women-rights] Nigeria: Government fails women and girls raped by police and security forces

Amnesty International Press release
11/28/2006 

"There were three men. I have pain even today... they used my daughter
too. She is 12 years old...They also raped my sister. Another man raped a
woman who was 4 months pregnant and she lost the child-they were military
men. Everyone in the village saw them, they didn't hide, they didn't care.
I didn't tell the police because I fear them."

Rape by police and security forces is endemic in Nigeria as is the abject
failure of the Nigerian authorities to bring perpetrators to justice,
Amnesty International said today at a press conference in Lagos, Nigeria.

The organisation called on the Nigerian Federal and State authorities to
urgently overhaul the legal and social systems that tolerate widespread
rape and sexual violence against women and girls across the country.

Amnesty International launched a report, Nigeria: Rape - the silent
weapon, which draws upon the testimony of survivors and identifies
disturbing trends of rape and sexual violence against women and girls at
the hands of police and security forces. The report argues that these acts
are compounded and encouraged by failures at every level of the judicial
system and persist because of consistent failure by the state to tackle
the abuse of women and girls by the police and security forces.

Whether abused by police, security forces or in their homes and community,
the report outlines the enormous difficulties faced by women and girls who
are raped or sexually abused in Nigeria.

"The harsh reality is that if you are a woman or a girl in Nigeria who has
suffered the terrible experience of being raped your suffering is likely
to be met with intimidation by the police, indifference from the state and
the knowledge that the perpetrator is unlikely to ever face justice," said
Kolawole Olaniyan, Africa Director at Amnesty International.

Among the findings presented at the press conference: 

* Evidence of the use of rape and sexual slavery by the Nigerian
security forces to intimidate communities in the Niger Delta 
* How rape is used by the police as a means of torture to extract
confessions from suspects in custody 
* How women and girls rarely seek prosecution for fear of
intimidation by the police and rejection by their families and
community. When they do, widespread failures throughout the judicial
system result in only an estimated 10% of cases ever being
successfully prosecuted. 

The report outlines serious obstacles to the reporting and prosecution of
rape in Nigeria, including inadequate training of police that results in
the humiliation and intimidation of the victims and police investigations
hampered by corruption and incompetence. On the legislative level,
differences between federal, state, Sharia and customary law lead to
uneven standards of justice and arbitrary decisions concerning the
seriousness of the crime.

"Our report depicts the near total failure of the Nigerian state to
protect women and girls from these terrible crimes. The Nigerian
government has taken no meaningful action to translate its international
legal obligations towards woman and girls into national law, policy and
practice. It is now time that the state and federal authorities meet those
obligations and offer real security and justice to women and girls in
Nigeria," Kolawole Olaniyan said.