A gender activist has said that there is possibility of increased online sexual predation under coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking in a radio programme on Nigeria Info 92.3, gender activist, Dorothy Njemanze, said cybercrimes targeted at girls had increased under the lockdown.
The gender activist said: “While I acknowledge the fact that there’s a high prevalence of so many of these violations on girls I’m also very admissive of the fact that a lot of the violations that happen to girls (also) befall boys.
“So we strongly advocate for system that will penalize criminals irrespective of their gender, social affiliations, religions affiliations or what have you. Now for girls, cybercrimes have increased and a lot of the increase in cybercrimes is targeted at girls”.
She said sexual predators were online preying on girls and advised parents to be friends with their girls and communicate freely with them saying this would enable them open up.
She also said parents should support their girls to get predators to face justice saying any girl who’s violated through online sexual predation should report to appropriate organization.
Njemanze said that parents should make the homefront friendly for girls so that they would not see online environment as their safe outlet.
The gender activist said: “A lot of parents have not had good relationships with their girls enough for the girls to open up about things and a lot of girls also are bound to fall prey to predators online because they feel the homefront is not safe for them.
The next thing is they’re looking for the next possible outlet as they cannot go out these days as freely as they could have (done) before (so) online (environment) is the next possible place and a lot of predators are preying online. With every holiday comes increase in sexual predation and this one is sports holiday I would say so there’s increase in sexual predation”.
In related manner, she said girls could be trapped somewhere and sexually abused under the lockdown and appealed to people to report on any case of sexual abuse.
Njemanze said the “onus” lied on people in “the interest of our shared humanity” to report cases in neighbourhoods where girls could be trapped and sexually abused.
She said: “A lot of girls are actually trapped in really bad situations … Nonetheless, somehow some girls could speak up in some ways… There are violations going on”.
She said while sexual abusers are mostly male there could also be female abusers.
The gender activist said with the time spent at home under the lockdown in large households it was possible people’s rights could be violated.
She said people whose rights would be violated should speak up and report about the violation, expressing the hope that appropriate authorities would respond.
