NASS will strengthen laws against rape — Omo-Agege

Deputy Senate President Ovie Omo-Agege has assured that the National Assembly will strengthen the nation’s extant laws against rape.

Omo-Agege, who spoke in Abuja on Saturday at the official launch of the Campaign Against Rape organised by the West African Freelance Journalists Association, said this would protect children from sexual and other forms of abuse.

Represented by his Senior Special Assistant (SSA) on Electronic and New Media, Lara OwoeyeWise, Omo-Agege said: “I am of the opinion that we should go back to our legal instruments that protect the child from sexual as well as other forms of abuse. This is with a view to strengthening them. And we at the National Assembly are looking at these setbacks, with a view to making our laws more potent.

“We should also, as a matter of national reorientation, have a change of attitude with regards to stigmatising victims of child rape. Let the stigmatisation go to the culprits of child abuse and not the victims, in line with customs of old.

“Further to maintaining our customs, we must return to our most prized heritage as Africans, namely family values. Parents must take out more time to raise their children to be better citizens.

“That way, when they grow up, there are more chances that they will abhor anti-social behaviours. Parents should pay more attention to their children, because a good number of these victims are taken advantage of by some other persons they come to trust, in their search for parental love which their parents, for some reasons, fall short of giving them”.