HRH Princess Tessy of Luxembourg, Tessy Antony de Nassau lends her voice to rally international attention and awareness to the appalling incidents of rape in Nigeria.
Tessy Antony de Nassau in a video message made available to African Voice said, “I am the proud Global advocate for young women and adolescent girls at the UNAIDS, I’m also patron to UNA-UK which works tirelessly to bring peace in the world and make UN peace keeping relevant again by emphasizing that sexual violence and conflicts is just not an option.
“My message to you today is to support the HEN Foundation, launched and founded by a dear friend of mine, Jamil Eniola.”
The HEN Foundation works all over the world, in the UK but also in African states tirelessly to support communities, make them safe, bring opportunities to raise awareness and specifically take care of the most vulnerable individuals in these communities and societies.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria’s Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu while briefing the media at the nation’s capital last week said, the country has recorded about 717 incidents of rape in the first five months of the current year. A total of 799 suspects were arrested in connection with these incidents, 631 cases have been conclusively investigated while 52 cases are still under investigation.
The Police chief, who was at the Abuja State House to brief President Muhammadu Buhari, on the rising cases of sexual and gender-based violence and the action of the Nigeria Police Force to curtail the rising trend, said that all the incidents took place between January and May, 2020.
The IGP disclosed that the country witnessed a steady rise in rape cases and other incidents of gender-based violence in the last couple of months due to the lockdown and restrictions in movement of citizens as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is a very wicked offence; it is a very serious offence, it is very wicked of an individual to engage in rape or defilement. There are a lot of causes, some are doing it for ritual purposes, some are doing it because they are within the family and they see the victims and have the urge to go into it and do it. But such people should not be allowed to go scot free.
“The police and other security agencies and other NGOs have been collaborating, to see to it that these cases of rape and gender-based violence are dealt with. The NGOs and CSOs that have the capacity to deal with this kind of offences, have been cooperating with law enforcement agencies in capacity building, management of victims of rape and similar offences and procedures for collecting evidence, towards successful prosecution.
“The government has taken the matter to another level now because of the surge we have noticed. I will call on every Nigerian that has or comes across any victim of sexual offenses or rape or gender-based violence, to quickly report to law enforcement agents because, keeping it without reporting it will give room for the perpetrators to continue to commit the offences,” he said.
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