Men constitute over 90% of suspected drug offenders in 3 years – NBS

Data from National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show that men make up over 90 per cent of suspects arrested for drug related offences in three years.

Citing data received from the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) and the Ministry of Justice, NBS disclosed that

in 2015, 92.7 per cent of suspected drug offenders were males and this increased to 93.5 per cent in 2016 and 93.8 per cent in 2017.

NBS disclosed that women made up 7.3 per cent, 6.5 per cent and 6.2 per cent of the arrests for the same years respectively.

The report also showed that rape cases in Nigeria have been on the rise.

The percentage of rape incidence for girls was 63.04 per cent in 2015, which increased to 72.13 per cent in 2016 but decreased to 69.33 per cent in 2017.

The report also showed that women aged 45 to 49 constituted 27.6 per cent of Female Genital Mutilation/ Cutting (FGM/C) compared to other age groups, while women aged 15 to 19 had the lowest at 12.3 per cent.

NBS also said available data from the Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS) indicated that about 2 per cent of prisoners/ inmates between 2012 and 2016 were female.

During the same period, prison admission for stealing was 95 per cent male and 5 per cent female; while the percentage of women admitted into prison because of trafficking was 14.6 and 14.5 per cent (for 2015 and 2016 respectively) compared to 4.5 per cent and 2.9 per cent in 2013 and 2014.

In addition, NBS revealed that the offence of trafficking in persons occurred mostly in the 16 to 25 age group, where women constituted about 76.63 per cent of convicted persons for that crime for the years between 2013 and 2015.