Group led by El Rufai’s wife marches to National Assembly, demands life imprisonment for rapists

…MARS-V notes that current penalty for rapists not stringent enough

The members of the Movement Against Rape And Sexual Violence (MARS-V) have gathered at the Unity Fountain of the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja) asking for life imprisonment penalty for rapists.

The Group noted that the punishment for the rapists in the country is not severe enough which makes it convenient for the perpetrators to persist in the heinous act.

According to the wife of the Governor of Kaduna State, Mrs Aisha El-Rufai, who led other members of the group to the National Assembly, unless stringent penalties are formulated, such occurrences may linger in the Nigerian society.

Read also: Nigeria passes new law to recognise males as rape victims

It will be recalled that recently, the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs Pauline Tallen observed that cases of rape in the country, particularly during the lockdown increase to 3,600, a statistics that calls for worry.

This is coming barely 24 hours that the Nigerian Senate passed a bill that deletes the statute of limitation on desecration, increase penalty for the offence of kidnapping, and remove gender constraints in the offence of rape and other related matters.

The bill also removes the time frame for prosecuting defilement cases by increasing the duration from two months to as many years as the victim decides to take up the matter.

It removes gender restrictions on the offence of rape by explaining that both male and female could be raped.