ABSTRACT
This study examined public perception on the effect of covid-19 on rape pandemic in Nigeria.
Qualitative method was used in the study, which involves the use of secondary data for the source of information. The secondary sources was through journals, reports, articles, newspapers, treaties, textbooks and various statutes which would be obtained from online sources and as well as data from Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) and Center for Women Affairs concerning rape cases.
The study revealed that; public perception on covid-19 ‘stay at home’ safety rules significantly influenced rape pandemic in Nigeria; there is a significance influence of Covid-19 ‘quarantine’ safety rule on Rape issues in Lagos State; measures to mitigate the issues arising out of rape pandemic positively relate to stay at home and quarantine safety rules in Lagos State.
The study concludes that; public perception has effect of covid-19 on rape pandemic in Nigeria. The study further recommended that; the Nigerian law on rape should be reviewed and strengthened in order to give it the desired outcome; government agencies should ensure that all women who have been subjected to violence, as well as rape, have access to redress, including compensation, rehabilitation and guarantees of non-repetition; all social institutions, parents, churches, civil societies, NGOs, and government institutions should as a matter of necessity and urgency provide qualitative sex education and guidance to the teeming Nigerian youths; the Ministry of Women Affairs, Civil Societies and NGOs should kick off an elaborate enlightenment campaigns against rape and rapists; female young teenagers hawking should be completely banned and prohibited; all rape victims should be showed much love and care in order to retrieve or boost their self-esteem.
CHAPTER ONE
1.1. Background to the Study
Pandemics are for the most part disease outbreaks that become widespread as a result of the spread of human-to-human infection, (Maurice, 2016). There have been many significant disease outbreaks and pandemics recorded in history, such as the Spanish Flu, Hong Kong Flu, SARS, H7N9, Ebola, Zika, and the latest which is Corona Virus known as Covid-19, (WHO, 2020). The term “pandemic” hasn’t been defined by many medical texts, however, there are a number of key features of a pandemic, which are, wide geographic extension, disease movement, novelty, severity, high attack rates and explosiveness, minimal population immunity, infectiousness and contagiousness, which help us to understand the concept better, (Rewar, Mirdha, & Rewar, 2015). The pandemic related crises have been associated with enormous negative impacts on health, economy, society and security of national and global communities. As well, they have caused significant political, economic, and social disruption.
Recent years have seen at least six large-scale outbreaks such as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, severe acute respiratory syndrome, H5N1 influenza, H1N1 influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and Ebola virus disease epidemic, (Gostin et al., 2016), and the latest is the coronavirus, which began in Wuhan, China, (WHO, 2020). Nigeria is currently experiencing the brunt of Coronavirus outbreak as the country was in a lock down, which resulted into negative impacts on many businesses across the country. As a result of the coronavirus outbreak, majority of business activities experienced supply chain distortions due to non-regular supply of raw materials and intermediate goods, loss of revenue and lack of liquidity to continue business operations. The year 2020 has been quite challenging for the international environment, as a result of the spread of coronavirus, otherwise referred to as COVID-19, and the resultant effect has led to an unparalleled health crisis among countries across the world.
All through the passage of time women have always been perceived as the weaker vessel, and so have been subjugated and oppressed by culture in most African societies, (Raymond, 2013). The culture is defined by inequality and the subjugation of the female folk. Gender-based violence, including rape, domestic violence and other sexual abuses, has assumed serious dimensions globally. In Nigeria, incidences of rape are fast assuming a threatening dimension that requires urgent intervention, (Olurounbi, 2015). Rape, like other forms of violence against women, is an infringement on women’s rights, privacy, self-preservation and dignity. Available data in the print and electronic media reveal that rape issue has become a serious social problem of epidemic proportion and no longer an isolated criminal act affecting just a few women in the society, (Kawu, 2016). In recent times the incidences of rape have increased at an alarming rate in Africa and also in Nigeria. There is little or no policy or law that helps protect the victims as they are blamed, stigmatized and humiliated by the public if it is brought to the public domain, (Malcolm, 214).
Rape is the act of forcefully having sex with someone against their will. Olurounbi (2015) defined rape as a sexual penetration by one person against another person without the consent of the victim. However, victims of rape have no age limit as babies, and the aged are vulnerable to this menace. Interestingly 90% of victims of rape are female. Rape is a denial of women self-preservation; it is the intrusion of their privacy, it is an inhuman and violent act. Rape victims are usually ashamed, humiliated, afraid, and there is little or no law to protect them, (Chiedu, 2016). Even the law enforcement officers that are meant to protect these victims also assault them in different ways, even sexually, (Kayode, 2020). The study described an incident of a 14- year-old girl in Abuja who was raped by a police officer in the police station. Though, what had brought her to the police station was not rape related, but a fight. She was sexually assaulted violently by the policeman because she threatened to report the policeman’s sexual advances. This and many more of these cases occur daily in Nigeria, (ibid).
The current world pandemic and its dreadful global impact is a reminder of the potential detriment of emerging infectious diseases. Fortunately, the world today is better equipped to battle this emerging beast. COVID-19 is, undoubtedly, a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. Humanity is witnessing moments of extreme uncertainty and an unprecedented global health crisis. Besides, the outbreak has had unprecedented and serious impacts on all aspects of human endeavours to how individuals work, communicate, trade, and live. The economic effects of the pandemic swiftly became obvious and businesses across the country have been on the front lines, with employees and customers staying at home.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel human coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, which began in Wuhan, China on December 8, 2019, a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on January 30, 2020 (WHO, 2020). With over ten million cases across the world as of July 7 (2020): United States (over two million cases), Brazil (over 700,000 cases), Russia (over 500,000 cases), Italy (over 250,000 cases) and in Africa, South Africa (over 54,000 cases), Egypt (over 38,000 cases), and Nigeria (over 30,000 cases) bear the greater brunt. Following this WHO declaration, the Coronavirus Preparedness Group was constituted on January 31 in Nigeria (a country with 36 states and a Federal Capital Territory [FCT]). World Health Organization (WHO) categorized Nigeria as one of the 13 high-risk African countries with respect to the spread of COVID-19. Nigeria is as well among the vulnerable African nations, given the weak state of the healthcare system in the country, (Marbot, 2020).
The international community is at the moment experiencing one of its most several health crises in human history, coronavirus or COVID-19. World Health Organization (WHO, 2020), states corona viruses as a large family of viruses that are causing illness, like, common cold, and severe diseases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). The COVID-19 or Coronavirus disease is a new strain that was discovered in December 2019 and hasn’t been previously identified in humans (Epidemiology Working Group for NCIP Epidemic Response, 2020; Bai, Wang & Zhou, 2020). As a result, the coronavirus is a respiratory virus that spreads through droplets from an infected individual coughs or sneezes or droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose. It is believed in medical sciences that corona viruses are zoonotic, that is to say, they were initially transmitted from animals to people, (CDC, 2019; ECDC, 2020).
In Nigeria today, there are still communities without healthcare facilities, apart from the scarcity of health workers, (Amzat, 2020). Sociologically, the pandemic has led to international social disruption by restricting global social relations. The idea of “social distancing” negates regular social interaction, which is the bedrock of human society, (Amzat & Razum, 2020). A contagious disease of global health importance as well disrupts the usual norms of close physical contacts since the disease is been transmitted through contact with persons who already contracted the disease. COVID-19 deglobalizes the world in terms of human migration with airports closure, and social events (sports, festivals and the like) postponed till further notice. The "stay-at-home" campaign and proscription of (large) social gatherings imply that social interaction has been restricted, (Daud & Leila, 2020).
In developing countries, both pandemics and infectious diseases have the potential to kill claim many people lives, and the likelihood of deaths is within the range of 5 to 10percent (Kern, 2016). During the SARS outbreak in 2003, there were more than 8000 infected individuals, with over 700 deaths (almost 9%) worldwide in just 6 months, (Wong & Leung, 2013). The social impacts of pandemics were severe, include travel was strictly limited, and schools closing, markets and sporting were closed. All these are currently experienced owing to the covid-19 outbreak. Population mobility is as well a key factor. Movement was difficult and the travel including visiting families, carrying goods to markets were restricted by military check points. The closure of airports and cancellation of flights affected many people’s travel, livelihood, and family life. With the rapid development in worldwide aviation over the last two decades, the risk of global pandemics has escalated with increased passenger traffic. With modern and efficient air travel, Covid-19 pandemic, which originated from Wuhan China, was rapidly transmitted to more than 30 countries in early 2020 (WHO, 2020). Closing the airports harmed the economy of the affected regions.
School closure is often considered the first non-pharmaceutical intervention for implementation in a pandemic, as students are effective in spreading the virus. Timely school closure and cancellation of public gatherings was significantly associated with reduced mortality related to covid-19 in 2020, (Chen, Huang, Chuang, Chiu, & Kuo, 2020). More than 1,300 public, charter, and private schools in 240 communities across the United States closed during the covid-19 pandemic, (Navarro, Kohl, Cetron, & Markel, 2016). School closure also raises a range of ethical and social issues, particularly since families from underprivileged backgrounds are likely to be disproportionately affected by the intervention, (Cauchemez et al., 2020).
Closing markets was also experience in the covid-19 pandemic, which caused disruption of food supply in the cities. People cannot find necessary food and living things because market and shop were closed. This as well caused a long-lasting change in people’s diet. The public games including sporting cancelled because public gatherings, (Kumar, Quinn, Kim, Daniel, & Freimuth, 2020).
1.2. Statement of the Problem
A number of communicable diseases can constitute significant threats at local, regional or global levels leading to epidemics or pandemics. An epidemic refers to an increase, often sudden, in the number of cases of an infectious disease above what is normally expected in a given population in a specific area. Examples of major epidemics include cholera and diarrhoeal diseases, measles, malaria, and dengue fever. A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that spreads through human populations across a large region, multiple continents or globally. These are diseases that infect humans and can spread easily. Pandemics become disasters when they cause large numbers of deaths, as well as illness, and/or have severe social and economic impacts. The study concerns with the covid-19 and rape pandemic to which humans may not have immunity.
In the past, pandemics have included cholera, smallpox, leprosy, measles, polio and yellow fever. Epidemics and pandemics can be: airborne: transmitted by air and droplets, for example, flu, measles, SARS, MERS; blood and/or body fluids borne: transmitted through contact, including blood transfusion, mother to child in utero, and sexual activity, for example, Ebola virus, HIV, etc. Infectious disease outbreaks can easily cross borders to threaten economic and regional stability, as it has been demonstrated by the current Covid-19 epidemics and pandemics, (Verikios, Sullivan, Stojanovski, Giesecke, & Woo, 2020). Beyond the debilitating, sometimes fatal, consequences for those directly affected, pandemics have a range of negative social, economic and political consequences, (Davies, 2013). For instance, the impact of Covid-19 pandemic was not just on mortality, but as well on health-care systems, animal health, agriculture, education, transport, tourism and the financial sector. In short, a pandemic event threatens all aspects of the economic and social fabric, (Drake, Chalabi, & Coker, 2012). For another example, the Rape pandemics as experienced in Nigeria in 2020 affected a lot of families, individuals and the society at large due to the psychological trauma experienced by the victims, (Ahmed, 2020).
Pandemics have infected millions of people, causing wide-spread serious illness in a large population and thousands of deaths. For example, the current covid-19 in the 21st century which has recorded over 1million death across the world with over 30million cases as the October 14th, 2020. This statement is in agreement with the assertion of Verikios et al., (2015), who claimed that, infectious disease disasters, including pandemics and emerging infectious disease outbreaks, have the potential to cause high morbidity and mortality in the world, and in fact they may account for a quarter to a third of global mortality, as seen in the current global Covid-19 pandemic
The issue of rape is not an abstract issue as it has unveiled its ugly mask in every society, and how do we describe the brutal nature of this shameless masquerade in Africa, especially in Nigeria? The issue of rape has not changed, but instead it has grown worse. Unfortunately, it has been on the increase all over the world. In the UK, there are about 147,000 rape cases every year and only a thousand plus are convicted, (Kayode 2020). The trend is the same in India, where in every 20 minutes, a case of rape is reported and only less than 25% of these cases are persecuted (Ibid.). In Lagos State, Western Nigeria, about 10,079 cases, which constitute only 18% of the rape that, occurred between 2015 and 2020, (Peters & Olowa, 2019; Caroline, 2020) were reported. An NGO (Mirabel centre), reported 170 rape cases between January 2020 and September, 2020, (Kayode 2020). Also reporting a high rise in rape cases, the police command identified gang rape as the most common, as it was at the top of the crime chat in 2020 (Ibid.).
From the statements above, it is crystal clear that the rape scourge is on the increase all across the world. Rape is not a delightful sight to behold. It is so devastating for the victims, even when the assaulters are persecuted in rare cases. There is therefore an urgent need for this menace to be controlled, especially in Nigeria where the scourge is assuming an alarming proportion. Therefore, it is on this note that this study will examine the public perception of covid-19 and rape pandemic on the economy of Nigeria.
1.3. Research Objectives
The primary objective of this study is to assess the public perception on Covid-19 and rape pandemic in Nigeria. However, the following specific objectives will be to:
i. assess the public perception of Covid-19 pandemic in Nigeria
ii. find out the perception of the public on rape pandemic in Nigeria
iii. investigate the combined influence of Covid-19 and rape on the economy of Nigeria
1.4. Research Questions
Based on the above research objectives, the following research questions are poised for the study.
- What is the influence of Covid-19 pandemic on the economy of Nigeria?
- To what extent is the influence of Rape pandemic on the economy of Nigeria?
- What is the combined influence of Covid-19 and Rape on the economy of Nigeria?
1.5. Research Hypotheses
The following research hypotheses will be formulated in their null form
Ho1: There is no significance influence of Covid-19 pandemic on the economy of Nigeria
Ho2: There is no significance influence of Rape pandemic on the economy of Nigeria
Ho3: There is no significance influence of combined Covid-19 and Rape on the economy of Nigeria.
1.6. Significance of the Study
It is hoped that the findings from this study will help the government and relevant public and private stakeholders to find a way to curtail the spread of the virus, and to ensure that necessary measures are in place that will help aid the smooth control of the virus spread. Also, it will help the government and policy makers to formulate policies that will punish offenders of rape in the society. Further, it is believed that, the findings will be beneficial to business owners and corporate organizations on how to stay in business in spite of the effects of the virus with the aid of today’s technological tools such as zoom, etc.
This study would equally be useful to all sphere of the country in ensuring that the coronavirus is given utmost attention and controlled in order to curtail its spread in the society. Similarly, it will help the general public on how to best to control and prevent rape occurrence in the society. Also, researchers interested in examining coronavirus and its effects on the economy of Nigeria will find the study very relevant in the course of their research. The study will add to knowledge in the peculiar nature of pandemic in Nigeria and its effects on Nigerian economy.
1.7. Scope of the Study
This study will look into how Covid-19 and Rape pandemic has affected the economy of Nigeria. The study variables will be restricted in the area of covid-19, rape and economy of Nigeria, while the study area will be limited to Lagos State, Nigeria. The choice of Lagos State was because it is the center of excellence and as well the center of commercial activities in Nigeria, and the most populated stated in Nigeria, in which there was a total lockdown on all commercial activities in the state, leading to the collapse of some businesses, entrenchment of workers, among others. Therefore, the choice of Lagos State is to unravel the effect of the covid-19 and rape pandemic on the economy of Nigeria as a whole.
1.8. Methodology of the Study
The methodology of this study will be qualitative in nature, which involves the use of secondary data for the source of information. The secondary sources shall be through journals, reports, articles, newspapers, treaties, textbooks and various statutes which would be obtained from online sources and as well as data from Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) and Center for Women Affairs concerning rape cases. The issue under discussion is a global menace which cuts across all the countries of the world, although, there have been so little research on the subject matter across the globe, this shall be referred to in discussing the topic at hand.
1.9. Operational Definition of Terms
Coronavirus: SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is the latest member of the coronavirus family affecting humans. This type of virus is commonly seen in humans and other mammals. In humans, coronavirus has four strains that cause mild clinical symptoms, usually referred as the common cold.
Economy: the state of a country or region in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money.
Virus: is a small parasite that cannot reproduce by itself. Once it infects a susceptible cell, however, a virus can direct the cell machinery to produce more viruses.
Rape: the act of forcing sexual intercourse upon another person without their consent or against their will.
Pandemic: refer to a widespread epidemic of contagious disease throughout the whole of a country or one or more continents at the same time
1.10. Synopsis of the Study
This study is structured into five main chapters. Chapter one entails the background, statement of problems, research objectives, research questions and hypotheses, and significance and scope of the study. Chapter two consists of the literature review that reveals the findings and research that already exists on the topic. Chapter three summarizes the scope and methodology used to organize and carry out this study. The discussion of the results after analysis of the findings and comparison to the information revealed within the literature review is conducted within Chapter four. Chapter five provides a summary of the study, its limitations and further recommendations.
