Friday 23 September 2011

Brutal Attack On Woman Outrages Nation : Nigeria Rape Footage

LAGOS, Nigeria -- In the grainy video, a Nigerian woman repeatedly asks her attackers to kill her as they take turns raping her at a university dormitory. The five men only promise to drive her home, pushing her back down each time she starts to stand up.

Local authorities have dismissed the 10-minute video, which has ricocheted around the Internet in recent days. But Nigeria's youth minister is calling for police to prosecute the men. Some Internet users disturbed by it are even offering rewards for information.

Activists in Nigeria say the video exposes an underreported epidemic of rape in Africa's most populous nation, and they plan to march in the coming days to draw attention to the case.

"The perpetrators go further to record it and circulate it. It shows for me that they're daring society to take action on it," said Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, the executive director of a Nigerian women's rights group called Project Alert. "It shows that there's a high level of impunity."

The video had circulated for weeks around the campus of Abia State University near Nigeria's southern oil-rich delta before being posted on the Internet. It appears to take place in a single-room dormitory or student hostel.

The men taking turns raping the woman who repeatedly asks to go home. "Please just kill me," the woman cries several times. The men laugh.

1 comment: