A 20 year retrospective study of rape pattern in Ebonyi State, South-East Nigeria

This paper investigates patterns of rape in Ebonyi state, South-East Nigeria. This was a retrospective study in which data on rape over a twenty year period (January 1999 to December 2018) were obtained from the records of the Criminal Investigation Department, Nigerian Police Force, State Headquarters, Abakaliki and the Ebonyi State Ministry of Justice, Abakaliki. The data was analysed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20 software (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA). The Chi square test and Students’ t-test test were used to analyze the categorical and continuous variables respectively. A multinomial Logistics Regression (MLR) and Pearson correlation Coefficient were used to determine the influence of the socio-demographic characteristics of the victims and perpetrators on rape of the victims. A P-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. This study showed an association between recreational drug use by the perpetrators and rape of the victims. There was a nexus among types of perpetrators, site of committed crime and social habits of the perpetrators with rape of the victims. Victims in urban residential areas were more likely to be raped based on the types of the perpetrators, site of the crime committed and social habits of the perpetrators than the victims in rural areas. Victims who were <18 years were more likely to be raped by neighbors (P = 0.01). Out of 8,286 perpetrators charged to court, it was only 2.9% of them that were convicted. Measures to stop recreational drug use will be useful in stemming the tide of increasing rape cases in the state. The relevant sections of Nigerian law on rape need to be altered to broaden its scope and help punish the perpetrators in order to serve as deterrents to others. Education and empowerment of females will help reduce rape and its associated stigma thereby enhancing the perseverance of the victims to the logical conclusion of the case.