17/09/2020
6,800 CASES OF DEFILEMENT RECORDED IN 6 MONTHS.
If you asked any child to randomly name people they would turn to for protection, naturally, parents, teachers, and guardians would come top of that list.
However, according to a new report by Police, it has emerged that more children are being defiled by people expected to protect them, including their parents, guardians, and teachers. Dubbed S*x Gender-Based Violence (SGBV), the report indicates that a total of 6,888 children, including 6,805 girls and 83 boys were defiled in the last six months compared to7, 216 cases reported in the same period in 2019.
The report cites 61 parents, 64guardians, and 54 teachers, among others, as perpetrators of the crime, which attracts life imprisonment, if found guilty. The Police have since arrested 2,727people over the crime, according to the report that covers January to June 2020.
The Police are now preaching caution, asking families to watch over their children who have been home since schools were closed in March, following the outbreak of COVID-19that has since killed 55 people in the country.
CONVICTIONS
According to the report; a total of 2,652 cases of defilement were taken to court, out of which 171 cases secured convictions, one case was an acquittal, 24 were dismissed and 2,456 cases are still pending in court.
Most victims of defilement (4,822) were aged between 15-17 years, 640 of the victims were between 0-8 and 1,446 were aged 9-14 years. The report indicates that generally, by the end of June, a total of 16,242cases of SGBV were reported to Police.
On average, a total of 2,707 cases of SGBV were reported to Police per month.
This includes crimes, such as defilement, r**e, indecent assault, and unnatural offences like so**my, lesbianism, and be******ty.