Karimot Odebode is a poet, writer, gender rights activist, and youth leader from Ibadan Nigeria. She is a Youth Champion for ONE Campaign in Nigeria where she spearheaded the fight against poverty and inequalities in her community.
Odebode is one of the 45 female African activists from 15 African countries that signed the open letter for the fight against gender inequality which was addressed and presented to G7 world leaders. She is currently the curator of The Black Girl’s Dream Initiative – a Youth-led organization that is creating a safe space for your girls in leadership, health, and education.
She is a member of @catcallsofng where she joined the fight against street harassment and sexual violence. Odebode is a graduate of Law from Obafemi Awolowo University.
In this exclusive interview with The West African Pilot News reporter, Bada Yusuf, she posited that castration, life imprisonment and the death penalty are fair deals for rapists. In her defense, she argued that rape is a calculated and premeditated crime. Read her here:
WAP: In the last two weeks, more cases of rape have been reported in Nigeria. From Vera Omosuwa in Edo, Jennifer in Kaduna, Barakat Bello in Ibadan, the 17-year old in Ekiti and Osun State, a 57-year old was remanded for raping a minor. What can you say about the growing number of rape cases in Nigeria?
Rape is not a new thing in Nigeria, the number has been increasing but with the recent cases, everyone seems to be on the alert. If you look at the statistics, it is always on the high. It is rather an unfortunate thing that it has been known as the source of the death of many young girls who have a bright future that it has made us see that the numbers are growing. The numbers have always been increasing in Nigeria. It is a quite alarming and unfortunate thing that our government is not taking it seriously.
WAP: The Chairman, Nigeria Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa has called for castration as punishment for rape but the House of Reps has rejected the call, what is your reaction to this?
Well, that is a great call from the Chairman, Nigeria Diaspora Commission. Rape is just a five-minute activity for the perpetrator but it is a lifetime agony for the victim. So, if you want to recreate it into castration, it is a fair deal. Because you want an activity of five minutes, you throw another human being into a lifetime agony. So, it is a fair deal when we push for the castration of rapists.
It is quite unfortunate that the House of Reps, even the law of the land is not forthcoming or is not helping when it comes to gender-based violence. Women have been sexually assaulted for years, but what has the law done? With the outrage, with the call, the law has not done anything. So, I think it is going to be fair on us, fair on all rape victims, in which the House of Reps can visit that and put that into consideration.
Because when we are talking of 14 years imprisonment, it is very small compared to the kind of agony, the kind of pain, the rape victim is going to pass through. Also, the law is not favorable when it comes to rape, there are so many conditions, there are so many things to prove if the person is been raped. So, the law has not been fair and it is left to the lawmakers to make the law fair to women so that we can trust them, we can know that the state is ready to provide us the security and welfare.
WAP: But the Speaker argues that if castration is allowed, what would be the punishment for older women that rape young boys? What do you have to say to that?
I agreed with you, rape is rape, no matter the gender, either you are a man or you are a woman, rape is rape. If we are proposing castration, there should be an equal punishment for women that also raped boys. This thing is illegal and does a lot of damages to the victim. So, we can always look back and look at some other punishment that will be equivalent to castration. If we want to place it on the scale, do we want to talk about the biological formation of the women compare to men, we can only talk about any punishment that will be equivalent to that of castration when it comes to women that rape boys. No matter the gender, rape is rape, and it is not acceptable.
WAP: You said “it’s going to be fair on us…” are you saying you have rape experience too?
When I talked about it not fair on us, injustice to one is an injustice to all. We don’t need to have rape experience before we can speak for our mothers, sisters, daughters. One in three women is sexually harassed in her lifetime. We are also talking about sexual assault, sexual harassment. No woman has not been assaulted, when you walk in the public, when you go to our market, in public busses, you see men touching women. It doesn’t have to happen to you before you know how it feels. I have sisters, I have friends that have experience when it comes to rape and sexual assault. Then, it has been stated statistically, one in three women are sexually abused by people that are close to them. When something happens to the women’s folks, an injustice to one is an injustice to all.
WAP: With the current situation, what do you think society can do to reduce the growing number of rape cases in the country?
The society has a whole lot to do when it comes to the issue of rape. In the family, what are parents doing to educate their boy-child, when it comes to relating with the girl-child? We have to integrate the belief, the culture of respect for women in our family. The family is the smallest unit in society but it is the most important unit of society. Whatever belief a child has from the beginning, it is that kind of orientation that he or she is going to take to the larger society.
We talk about peer pressure, peer pressure, if every parent can teach their children in a very good way, when they go to the society and meet themselves, they are going to bring that same knowledge to the society. So, if parents A are telling their child that rape is not good, and parents B have a lackadaisical attitude when their boy-child does something that is not right to the girl-child and keeps shut, that is where the problem starts from. When the parent C doesn’t care, even the father talks to the mother anyhow, they make rape jokes, what do you expect when their children get back to society? The effect of parent B and parent C can influence the child of parent A. therefore, we need to go back to the smallest unit of the society and re-orientate our boy-child that rape is wrong and when you see a girl being rape when you see a boy raping a girl, you have to speak up. We need to dismantle this where it starts from.
And then the school, we have to review our curriculum. The school has a whole lot and that also goes back to our ministry of education and then the government. What are they doing in the matter of orientating our boy-child and our girl-child when it comes to the matter of sex? Sex is beyond when a boy touches you, you get pregnant, we need to tell them the biology of things. We need to dismantle it from the family to the school and the religious institution.
Now to our religious institution, I can categorically tell you as a Muslim lady, I have never sat in a sermon, I have never in my more than two decades sat in a sermon, where the Imam gives a sermon on rape, I have never. These are the people that they look up to, most people listen to their religious leaders, to their pastors, Imams, more than they listen to their parents. So, we need to get back to our religion, pastors and Imams should incorporate it in their sermon that rape is wrong.
Then we go to our legal institution and government. Why is it that in the constitution, it is so difficult to prove rape, why is it like that? Why is it that it is just 14-years imprisonment for rape? Rape is a lifetime scar that happens to the girl-child. So, we need an equivalent law to tackle the pandemic rape. We don’t want a reduction in rape, the reduction is like we are going back, we want an end, I mean a total end. We want to walk freely on the street again, we want to sleep with our two eyes closed.
WAP: As a law graduate, what effective law can you suggest to the government that will punish both male and female gender equally since castration only applies to males?
We can always talk about life imprisonment, that is one punishment that we can always push. When you are condemning a person, emotionally, for life. It is also a fair deal for you when you are also condemned. I mean just spend the remaining of your life in prison. I think that is one of the fair deals that we can push forward. Then, there is also the place of the death penalty for people that rape, a place of the death penalty when it comes to rape.
WAP: The death penalty, is that not too much?
The death penalty is not too much. Rape is a calculated crime. It is a premeditated crime. You see a girl and then, you intentionally go through the process of inflicting emotional damage to her, and some also experience physical damage. Now, when we talk about the death penalty for a premeditated crime, the person thinks about it before committing the crime, you have the luxury of time to say I want to do this, I don’t want to do this when we then push for the death penalty, it is not too much.
