A 15-year-old Nigerian girl detained after killing a man, who had attempted to rape her, has been freed. Prosecutors say they will not press charges against her. She stabbed the man, who happened to be her father’s friend in March when she had gone to his house to do chores, according to Police.
Following the death of the 51-year-old man, the teenager was held at a correctional home for girls in Lagos.
State prosecutors in Lagos say there is no evidence to support a murder charge. The teenager has been freed amid protests in Nigeria calling for sexual violence against women to end.
Responding to the Lagos State’s Director of Public Prosecutions, Magistrate Philip Ojo, said that the teenager should be freed from custody as the “ingredients required to prove the offence of murder against the suspect were not all present.”
“Also clearly intention to kill or cause grievous bodily harm to the deceased cannot be established,” he said. The country has witnessed public protests over a wave of rapes and killing of women. Thousands have recently signed a petition calling for an end to sexual violence.
According to the BBC, neither the girl nor her family, commented on the incident.
According to Nigeria’s Minister of Women’s Affairs, Pauline Tallen, there has been a startling rise in rape cases in the country – recorded during the lockdown as a result of the coronavirus.
She called on security agencies to speed up investigations. “There has been an outcry against rape epidemic because of the lockdown. Women and children are locked down with their abusers”, the minister said.
In the past weeks, Nigerians have taken to Twitter and other social media platforms to demand justice for the murder of Uwavera Omozuwa, a 22-year-old student of the University of Benin. She was allegedly raped and attacked in a church where she went to study and died three days after.
