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A protester wearing a face mask, carries a banner during a demonstration to raise awareness about sexual violence, in Abuja, Nigeria June 5, 2020. /Reuters
Residents of Lagos have demanded urgent action against rape and sexual violence against women following a recent spike of such incidents in the West African country.
Protesters took to the streets of the country's largest city on Monday, seeking to have the government declare a state of emergency on rape and sexual violence.
The protests came a few days after reports emerged that a 22-year-old student had died two days after she was raped in a church in the southern city of Benin.
The death of Uwaila Vera Omozuwa cames as citizens were still reckoning with a spate of violence against teenage girls in May.
"These unfortunate events are not a standalone, rather they are a culmination of unhealthy cultural practices," CNN reports the Women Against Rape in Nigeria group to say.
WARN is pushing for all states in Nigeria to have a sex offenders list, and for it to be made public, as well as other measures to name and shame perpetrators of sexual violence.
"In Nigeria, you see men catcalling, and groping women in the market and they become violent once they don't respond to their advances. You find men dismissing the accounts of sexual violence. This has to stop," CNN quotes Ebele Molua, an activist and one of the conveners of Monday’s protest.
Some Nigerian celebrities have also amplified the calls against sexual violence in the West African country, including Nollywood actress Hilda Dokubo, who joined earlier protests on Friday.
