"A Country of Rapists"

I read a fine article today in Punch Newspapers that highlights the burden of sexual violence in Nigeria and the pervasive myths which promote this malady. It's worth reading and I've referenced it, A Country of Rapists. People who read about rape cases in newspapers may not understand the negative impact this atrocity has on the the victims, nay survivors, and the society at large. When you have to personally deal with survivors of this heinous crime against  humanity, it may help to understand the ramifications of impact on the survivors. Many people don't get it but simply ask a police officer how he'd feel if his daughter, sister, wife or mother was raped by some police officer for "sex-for-bail"  he'd immediately retort that such an officer would be a dead man if he had any chance near him. If this were a personal outrage, why would the society just carry on like rape or other forms of sexual violence were simply a problem of the victim alone? Where is our national outrage like the Indians exhibited recently? Are Nigerians simply numb to anomalies around them and incapable of instigating a positive social change? How would you feel if your daughter, sister, wife or mother were raped or sexually assaulted by someone? We keep talking about police investigation without asking "which investigation?". The Nigerian Police do not have the modern means to investigate allegation of sexual violence. I brought home some samples of forensic kits for investigation of rape cases following a workshop we organized in one of the Southern African countries. I had an opportunity to interact with some Nigerian police officers actively engaged in investigation and none of them, and I repeat none of them, had ever seen a forensic kit for investigating sexual assault! These are kits (both for children and adults) that are used to gather forensic evidence for appropriate rape investigation and this is done in close collaboration with forensic medicine practitioners, the police and justice system. Where do we even start to address the issue when there is no functional police forensic laboratory where relevant tests could be carried out by qualified persons and and also when there is no any independent forensic lab in Nigeria for such tests? In my practice, I've collected forensic evidence from survivors of rape cases which the police never requested for, and one of the main reasons being investigating officers simply do not understand their evidential value of such items and even if they do, there is neither any funding nor facility to process them. Are we doomed to trail behind in all indices of development and responsiveness as a nation? How much will it cost Nigeria or the composite states or regions to set up a forensic laboratories, within forensic institutes, which will independently assist the police and the justice system in providing objective answers to many questions that arise in certain crimes, especially in rape cases? When are we going to back off from this primitive dependence on "confession" of alleged offenders (who usually would have been tortured enough, a violation of their human rights, to admit to any crimes whatsoever). We need to start looking at the right places for solutions. Rape cases are grossly under-reported in Nigeria and this exercise of power and control, usually by perverted men, is more rampant than reported. Their victims, mainly girls and women, are not safe anywhere anymore. The last case I'm dealing with presently took place at a religious gathering! Instinctively, the survivors already know the state does not care and people around would rather want them to "soak it" in and move on with life. Which life?