Date Published: 11/30/09

HURIWA wants police rapists of nude dancers arrested

A development focused and democracy inclined Non-Governmental organization- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS’ ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA, HURIWA, has protested the increasing allegations of what it calls persistent sexual and physical abuses of ladies allegedly caught at odd hours of the nights by the men and officers of the Nigeria Police and has therefore called on the Inspector General of Police Ogbonna Onovo to investigate and prosecute serving and retired police operatives known as perpetrators of rape and sexual molestation of detainees in their custody. HURIWA also canvassed the creation of police anti-rape desks in all police formations across the country including a coordinating anti-rape unit in the office of the police Inspector General in Abuja.

The rights group is particularly concerned with the reported allegations of systematic sexual abuses and rape of several nude dancers recently arrested by the police from some Lagos based clubs and has demanded the setting up of an independent panel of inquiry by both the Lagos State judiciary and the police high command in Abuja to probe the disturbing allegations of the existence of specialized rapists among serving police operatives across the country, identify those that have committed the dastardly crime on those nude dancers in Lagos and prosecute them in the competent court of law to serve as effective deterrence to other rapists in police uniforms.

In a statement by its National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, HURIWA said that in as much as it condemns the rapid rise in the practice of prostitution and the growth of nude dancers’ clubs all across Nigeria and especially in Lagos because of the fact that it is offensive to the culture, traditions, norms and constitutional provisions that protect public decency, but strongly carpeted police operatives alleged to have abused their official privileges by demanding and receiving even on gun points, sexual gratifications of some teenage girls allegedly caught in the wrong side of the law as club girls or prostitutes. The rights group called on Government at all levels to tackle the rise in poverty and unemployment among the young persons in Nigeria in order to prevent widespread prostitution among the youths.

Specifically, on November 3 2009  officials of the dreaded Lagos State Environmental task force and special offences Units  raided four nude clubs and arrested 33 alleged nude dancers and two managers even as the clubs were said to be put under lock and key for allegedly constituting social nuisance and operating without licences from the Lagos State government. Bayo Sulaiman, a Superintendent of Police attached to the task force confirmed the arrest of the nude dancers. But some of the alleged nude dancers in a newspaper report alleged that they were systematically raped and sexually abused during and after they were arrested and detained for eight days before a mobile court released them on bail.

The HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS’ ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA stated that there is a widely known knowledge among human rights advocates that girls and ladies arrested by the police across the country at odd hours and categorized as prostitutes usually face serial and systematic rounds of sexual and physical torture and rape in the hands of the serving police operatives hired and paid with tax payers’ money to promote respect for the rule of law and the protection of the human rights of citizens. The rights group said it is inundated with reports from alleged victims of police sexual molestations and rape and has therefore asked the Inspector General of Police to take urgent, verifiable and workable remedial action to stop the evil practice among the rank and file of the Nigeria police.

Citing sections 34 [1] [a] of the 1999 constitution, the rights group asserted that ‘’every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his/her person and accordingly no person shall be subjected to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment’’ and section 36 [5] of the constitution provides that ‘’every person charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed to be innocent until he/she is proven guilty by the competent court of law’’. The group also reminded the police high command that rape and other sexual offences are grave crime against humanity criminalized in several Nigerian statutes and demanded that the police authorities must arrest all rapists in police uniforms and charge them for the offences of rape. HURIWA asked the National Assembly to hasten the process of domestication of the convention against all discriminatory practices against women [CEDAW], international human rights treaty already signed on by Nigeria. HURIWA criticized the Nigerian Human Rights Commission for not doing enough to protect vulnerable Nigerian girls from the hands of police rapists.