Rape Of Teenage Hawker: Anambra Attorney General, Others Laud Court Judgement

The Children, Sexual and Gender-based Violence Court sitting at Awka has sentenced to life imprisonment one Michael Okoi, aged twenty-three, who was alleged to have on eleventh May 2024 in Onitsha had unlawful sexual intercourse with a seventeen-year-old girl hawking “Okpa”.

An offence contrary to Section three-two of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition and Protection Laws of Anambra State, 2017.

Delivering judgement in a four-count charge brought against the defendant; which includes compelling the victim by threat to engage in sexual conduct to the detriment of her psychological well-being, as well as willfully and unlawfully inflicting injury on her, the court presided over by Justice Peace Otti, against the Defense Counsel’s argument, ruled that the girl is incapable of giving sexual consent under Section thirty-four of the Child Right Laws of Anambra State, 2004, and that it was immaterial that the perpetrator thought that the victim was above the age of a child.

Reacting to the judgement, the Anambra State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Professor Sylvia Ifemeje, Ugochi Freeman of Child Protection Network, and the state International Federation of Women Lawyers Chairperson, Barrister Amara Muojeke, said that the judgement is landmark, spectacular and ensures deterrence, sending a signal that the Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s administration has zero tolerance for all forms of gender-based violence in the state.