Twelve year old, named withheld, was unable to walk straight as she was taken to the Mirabel Sexual Assault Referral Centre Ikeja, Lagos on Wednesday. She would occasionally hold her lower abdomen and groan in pain when she thought no one was looking. Officials of the Child Protection Network said her situation was worse than that when she was first found, barely 24 hours after she was gang raped at the Ojuwoye, Mushin area of Lagos by three men in the neighbourhood.
It was difficult for officials to get words out of her as her health had worsen. But when Juliet finally opened up, she told her rescuers how the men who raped her were allegedly aided by a woman, she took as a mother. The girl, who lived with her grandmother in Mushin following the death of her mother, said she would sometimes go to the shop of her mother's closest friend.
The woman in question is a vendor of alcoholic herbal drink in the neighbourhood called Mrs. Salawa. "I went to her house sometimes to play. On Wednesday, I was there when the three boys came. They bought drinks from her and drank it there. When they finished, they dragged me inside her shop. When I was struggling with them, she helped them to push me inside. Then they locked the door” the girl said.
According to Juliet, as she screamed, she had hoped that the woman would come to her aid. "She did not do anything and when they finished, they gave me N4,000 and opened the door. After they left, she collected the N4,000 from me" Juliet said. According to Punch, one of the alleged rapists has been arrested. However, as Juliet stabilised in the hospital she gained the strength to reveal more information about her plight in the neighbourhood. She revealed that she had been a victim of several sexual assaults in the past.
"She has also revealed that an elderly man, whom she identified simply as Jimoh had been raping her long before the two cases of gang-rape." On Friday, a more dire diagnosis came from the hospital; a doctor said she required a surgery if she were to survive. The police said the investigation was still at an early stage and that efforts were being made to visit the victim and get a full statement from her that would enable them to effect the arrests of those she had mentioned.
Punch
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Crime