There is a growing concern among stakeholders and residents of Sokoto over the increasing cases of sexual abuse in the state. The rate of rape, sodomy, sexual exploitation, sex trade, Illegal camping, unwanted pregnancies, abortion, and sexually transmitted infections have become increasingly worrisome, necessitating calls for the need to check the situation.
The state Hisbah Commission says it recorded 606 such cases in 2019 alone.
“It has reached an alarming rate. Successively, from 2017 to 2019, the Hisbah Commission has recorded a high prevalence rate of 263 cases in 2017, 296 in 2018, with 100% increase in prevalence of 606 cases recorded in 2019,” the state Hisbah Commandant, Dr. Bello Kasarawa, said.
He gave the age range of victims as between 13 and 17 years old and the age range of suspects involved to be 35 to 70 years.
Kasarawa said the commission which collates records from existing 122 functional Hisbah divisional offices across the 23 local government areas of the state, had arrested many suspects who were referred to the police.
He added: “Hundreds of these cases referred were through covering letters by the commandant to NAPTIP and NDLEA depending on the nature of the suspected crimes for necessary action.”
“The NAPTIP cases involving women trafficking and harbouring of young girls constitute the worst experiences in Hisbah operations. Most of the girls are teenagers within the age bracket of 13 to 18 years that got into the sex business at an early stage. Some of them ran away from their parents or husbands due to domestic violence or forced marriage.”
He said many of the young people referred to NAPTIP were abducted and kept away from their parents by irresponsible aged persons or adults including landlords, customers and other crime peddling partners in suspected cases.
“Some of the teenage girls were found pregnant and abandoned by the suspects or could not identify those that impregnated them and were unable to go back to their families,” Kasarawa stated.
On the causes of the increasing sexual abuse of children in the state, he identified poverty, forced marriage, broken home, ignorance, abandonment of family, maltreatment/frustration of wives, child trafficking, child labour, drug abuse, sex hawking, rejection of children by parents, bad peer groups/mates, street begging, deception by persons in the name of proposal for marriage and frustrating legal processes to deal with culprits.
He highlighted the challenges the commission faces in dealing with such cases to include compromise by legal authorities/practitioners, interference by politicians, corruption by security agencies, lack of cooperation by victims’ parents and inadequate preaching by religious scholars.
The Hisbah Commandant said abandonment of the family by the husband was of serious concern as it had led some married women into prostitution.
“Some men run away leaving their wives and the children because of poverty, and sometimes the husbands travel far away to other parts of the country to go and look for something to take care of the family, some stay there for about 1, 2, 3, to 4 years before returning, abandoning the family.
‘’We recorded high prevalence of married women in prostitution in Gwadabawa Local Government, Salame has the highest number, it is a serious issue, in every 10 cases of those involved in prostitution, three are married women,” he noted.
He, however, said the commission which has a mandate to sanitise the society had endeavoured to reunite many people with their parents or families and some of the adults were assisted in getting married.
“This initiative has informed many parents to seek the indulgence of the commission in assisting their children or wards in getting married against prostitution or criminal activities.”
But lack of funding and training difficulties, he said, were significant challenges.
According to him, a proposal for the amendment of the Hisbah law was written to the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in the state, and is now receiving attention from the office.
“Hopefully, it is expected that the proposed amendment will be fast-tracked into an amended law to strengthen the operations of the Hisbah Commission,” he said.
He expressed optimism that if the state provides the necessary funds to train volunteers of the Hisbah Commission Corps, it would have far-reaching effect in reducing and combating crimes and other social vices in the state for peace, progress and tranquility to prevail.
Hajiya Fatima Attahiru of the Federation of Muslim Women Associations of Nigeria, (FOMWAN) observed that the prevailing sexual and gender-based violence might be because parents had become more negligent of their responsibilities. She also noted that many perpetrators of such acts go unpunished.
“Laws should be put in place and enforced to save the lives of potential rape victims and all other vices that are gender-based,” she stated.
The Director of Programmes, Sultan Foundation for Peace and Development, Aminu Inuwa Muhammad, traced the problem to disregard of culture.
“In our culture, we revere women, we guard them, we protect them, we give them all the privileges and all the rights, but these things are not happening now,” he noted.
“There is a lot of misguidance, and there are issues to do with poverty. The entire fabric of the society has lost its footing. So we need to go back to our roots to prevent the menace,” he added.
He underscored the need for stakeholders to ensure that they mitigate the problem and support survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in the state.
Muhammad said the Sultan Foundation, one of the organisations implementing the Spotlight Initiative Programme on sexual and gender-based violence in Sokoto, would organise several activities on male engagement to prevent gender-based violence in the state.
“We are targeting the focal point of the community-traditional leaders, religious leaders and other stakeholders to make them understand the need to have a change of attitude towards women,” he stressed.
“We need to go back to our history and see how we revered women, how we took care of children, how we supported women and children, and how we supported the less privileged in our community. They are in our religion, in our culture, but now we have forsaken that, we need to go back to the drawing board,” he said.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, Aisha Muhammad Dantsoho, said: “We have been handling cases of gender-based violence, and we link survivors with services such as healthcare, livelihoods, psychosocial counseling.”
She said the ministry was working with various stakeholders to fight the menace.
“We have drafted proposals on the Child Protection Law in Sokoto State, and we have had several trainings and programmes on child protection,” she said.
“One of the things we had also done was to activate the child protection network. It was dormant for 16 years. They are following up on cases to see that they are handled properly,” she added.
On the proposed Sexual Assaults’ Referral Centre to be established in Sokoto, she said it would start by the end of March.
“For every rape or sodomy case, there should be a hospital visit by the survivor. The referral centre will be a one-stop-shop. It would provide psychosocial support, medical support and livelihood support for the survivor.
“We are now trying to have child protection committees in the local government areas. We have established one in BInji and one in Sokoto North, hopefully by this year, we will extend them to other local government areas,” she said.
