Sexual Violence and the Plights of Internally Displaced Persons During the Covid-19 Pandemic Lockdown in Nigeria

Joy Nneka U. Ejikeme¹, Iwundu Ifeanyi E^.2 & Ogechi Cecilia Ukaogo³

¹PhD, Lecturer in Humanities, Humanities Unit, School of General Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Email: joy.ejikeme@unn.edu.ng

²Senior Research Fellow, Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka

Email: Iwundu.ifeanyi@unn.edu.ng

³Staff, Careers Unit, Registrar’s Office, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Email: oukaogo@gmail.com

 Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.19

Abstract

This paper examines the new vista opened by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic specifically the issue of rape criminality in Nigeria. Regrettably, Covid-19 lockdown saw to the different dimensions to rape crime which is the household rape. In addition, this study beams its searchlight on the most vulnerable group; women and girl children affected by the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown especially those that were Internally Displaced from their homes, the IDPs. Furthermore, this study observes that the lockdown in Nigeria resulted in many deaths and injuries on the verge of enforcing the Covid-19 lockdown rules. Relevant materials for this paper have been sourced from newspapers, online publications in journals, and books while the descriptive method of analysis has been adopted.

Keywords: Rape Criminality, Sexual Violence, Covid-19, Pandemic and Internally Displaced Persons.