How Rape Should be Reported by the Victims: Opinion Survey of the Female Students of Crawford University in Nigeria

Abstract

The act of reporting rape to the police is considered a difficult task to undergo for the victims of this crime. With female respondents from a private university in Nigeria (n=40), this research explored the way through which rape is reported. Multi-stage sampling method (convenience and purposive sampling methods) was used in the sampling of the research setting and the female respondents who participated in the study. The study discovered that the respondents preferred that the reports on rape should be made to the parents, religious leaders and friends and not to the police who, of course, should be the ones that the victims need to contact first after such crime incident. The study recommended that there should be massive educational campaigns, seminars and public talks on the needs for the victims to report the crime of rape to the police. The study also recommended total support and encouragement from the family members of the victims and the entire public in forms of love, care, affection, moral support, advice and counseling to the victims so that the rape stigma may be entirely eradicated from the Nigerian society. Finally, training and retraining of police officers on how to handle rape cases, good police - community relationships, eradication of corruption and brutality from the police, in-door trial of rape cases and severe punishment for the offenders, found guilty of rape would go a long way in encouraging the future victims of rape to come against the offenders that have wronged them sexually in our society.