A Family Court in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, has sentenced a 47-year-old man, Ita Okon, to life imprisonment for raping an eight-year-old girl.
The presiding judge, Justice Blessing Egwu, who found Okon guilty of the offence, also ordered him to pay N1 million compensation to the girl.
Justice Egwu, while delivering judgement on Wednesday, October 9, 2024, held that the penalty would serve as a deterrent to those thinking of carrying out such a heinous crime in future.
James Ibor, the Principal Counsel of Basic Rights Counsel Initiative, the non-governmental organisation that secured the conviction, commended the judgement, saying violence against women and girls must stop.
Ibor said the judgement was a triumph of good over evil, especially in the fight against rape and other Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Cross River State and the nation at large.
The Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Law (2015) domesticated in Cross River in 2021, prescribes life imprisonment for any person convicted of rape.
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