Mr Olawale Fapounda, the Ekiti Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, says the state prosecuted 168 rape cases in 2021.
Fapounda, who made this known while briefing news men on Wednesday in Ado Ekiti, added that 108 of the cases were, however, still active and on-going.
He reiterated the State government’s zero tolerance for all forms of gender-based violence, especially sexual violence, saying that those found culpable would be prosecuted and publicly shamed.
“We have deliberately adopted a hard line attitude towards sex offenders, in order to achieve deterrence.
“We have also adopted a range of interventions in the area of Law reform; we have enacted a number of laws, including the Gender Based Violence (GBV) (Prohibition) laws.
“We also adopted a compulsory treatment of child victims of sexual violence law among others,” the commissioner said.
He added that the state government had also concluded a review of the criminal law of Ekiti state with far reaching provisions on sexual violence.
“Administratively, we are implementing name and shame policy for convicted sex offenders”, Fapounda stated.
He said that a register of sex offenders had been opened, to ensure that offenders didn’t benefit from the Governor’s prerogative of mercy.
“We realised the need to do a lot more public education and awareness to encourage our people to speak up and speak out.
“We are at present working on the modalities for the evaluation of our interventions since 2018; this will have to be a holistic process not limited to the impact of court cases”, the commissioner added.(NAN)
