Breaking the silence on Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), Barrister Olumide Kaede Omosebi, lawyer and founder of Gnosis Health Initiative, has said that this year at least 116 Nigerian women and 32 men have been lost to domestic violence.
He mentioned that the behaviour is driven by religious beliefs and cultural influences.
Globally, an alarming 35% of women have faced physical or sexual violence from intimate partners or others.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), in Nigeria, 31% of women have experienced physical violence since the age of 15.
What’s particularly concerning is that most of these acts are committed by intimate partners.
Worldwide, 30% of women in relationships report having endured physical or sexual violence from their partners at some point in their lives.
Elaborating more on the alarming rate of SGBV, Barrister Omosebi, while speaking on News Central’s Jasiri, mentioned a case about children sent to fashion camps only to be molested and abused by one of their instructors.
He said, “Well, it’s a matter that’s already in court, but as little as I can tell you, because once the matter is in court, you have to stand down, is that it’s called the Lagos Fashion Festival.
“That was the advert on Instagram. And some of these parents, over the course of the third term break, thought that, oh, well, we are here for holidays. Some children that wanted to go to modelling, he advertised also that he had a Netflix contract to shoot a movie and was looking for roles.
“So actresses came, up-and-coming models came. So for the children, he started with, I think some are eight years old, seven, years old. There’s an 8-year-old, a 9-year-old, a 14-year-old.
“Yes, all the way to 18, 19. So they started coming, and what he would say is, let’s see a love scene. So, in that romance scene, there were some girls he actually defiled.
“We have the hospital reports. I think she’s about nine and we have about a total of 9 to 10 children who came forward, a total of about five models. And a particular model was actually raped on set.
“You see, his set, he is the only one in. So he locks the door and tells you, okay, we want to see a romance scene.
“At times he tells you to sit on his lap. You know, they see that there’s something wrong but he now tells you that, you know, that Netflix thing that we need to be able to.
“There was one told to take her clothes off. She refused. You know, he would say, okay, sit down there. Then, do the love scene. He would pat you on the back. Then, you know, molesting both children and adults.
“So by the time we took up the case, we found out that people had already reported him on Instagram. That was before this new set. And so Punch had already done something on him before.
Still speaking about child molestation, Barrister Omosebi said that one in every three children, especially the girl child, will be sexually assaulted, molested or defiled before age 18, while one in every seven boys will be sexually assaulted before age ten.
Watch the full interview below.
