The Silent Epidemic — Male Rape
ABSTRACT
When the average person hears "rape", what comes to mind is a female victim and a male perpetrator. This belief is not unfounded considering the age-long history of women being on the high receiving end of gender based violence.
The lack of attention on male rape however, stems from the false sense of masculinity that has been ascribed to men, which resulted in a deafening culture of silence and under-exploration of the issue. As opposed to general belief, male rape is very prevalent, although very under-reported. According to a report by "This Day Live", a 34-year-old man raped a nine-year-old after making death threats to the young boy. There are also two cases where young women chartered a bike and assaulted the bike rider before eventually raping him. Despite these series of events, there have hardly been any convictions of male rape.
This paper seeks to address the silent epidemic of male rape and the factors behind the culture of silence. It also seeks to draw a comparison between the legal framework in Nigeria and in other countries as well as give recommendations on what should be done.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Rape is an age old menace that was long considered to be rooted in an individual's lack of self restraint, however, time has proven it to be more of a superiority complex; the need to enforce power over a victim. The scope of definition of rape is one that keeps evolving and this is evident in the substantial changes to its definition from a gendered perspective, where victims could only be women to a more encompassing one where men and children could be victims as well.
A key factor to this development is the increased awareness and discussions on consent, rape and its effects on victims. The earliest definition of rape as the violation of an unmarried virgin was deeply rooted in the belief that a woman was her husband's property, hence it did not allow for the possibility that he raped her. This among other problematic loopholes gave rise to the constant advocacy by feminists to broaden the instances where consent is not given by the victim. Also, the broadened knowledge of gender and sexuality has debunked the myth that rape is a crime committed by a man against a woman. To this end the Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Report, Amendment (2012) defined rape as “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object of oral penetration by a sex organ of another person without consent of the victim.” This definition deviated from its narrow scope to one that recognises the possibility of rape being committed by any gender against the other.
The Nigerian Criminal Code Act and Penal Code have a rather backward view, as rape only occurs when a man has nonconsensual sexual intercourse with a woman or girl. The Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, which was a huge step to removing this limitation of penile penetration, has only been domesticated in 13 states.
Despite this development, Male rape is still grossly under-reported for various reasons.
2.0 WHY IS MALE RAPE UNDERREPORTED?
It is important to note that there is hardly any concise, accurate report on the statistics of male rape in Nigeria. Asides the problem of inaccurate reporting in the Nigerian system and a lack of favourable laws that protect the male gender, a major issue is the lack of safe spaces in our society for survivors to speak up. Despite the fact that sexual assault and rape particularly affects the female gender, rape cases hardly get prosecuted even when reported. This could be as a result of a varying number of reasons; the arduous burden of proof on the victim, the stigma on victims and delay in judicial proceedings. According to a 2014 National Survey on Violence Against Children in Nigeria, it was reported that one in four girls had experienced sexual violence in childhood, while approximately 70% experienced sexual violence more than once. It was also found that 24.8% girls between the ages 18 to 24 had experienced a form of sexual abuse before the age 18, only 5.0% sought help and only 3.5% received any services.
According to the findings from the research by the Nigeria Violence Against Children Survey which involved 2,437 boys and young men, 11% of the men aged 18-24 had experienced sexual violence prior to 18. In the same vein, 8.4% of the boys' ages 13-17 had experienced sexual violence in the past 12 months and 76% had experienced multiple incidents of abuse throughout their lifetime with 34.9% of them experiencing it before the age of 13. These reports do not completely capture accurate data as male victims are less likely to speak up on abuse and in some cases do not realise they have been abused. Here are some reasons;
2.1 Dearth of Service Providers
While a lot of effort has been expended to cater for the needs of female rape survivors, the same cannot be said for male survivors. A contributing factor to this is that much research has not been done on the trauma experienced by male victims of sexual abuse, how it affects them and the recovery process, this inevitably results in a lack of support services to deal with the specific needs of male survivors. They also lose trust in the sexual assault referral center’s ability to cater for their needs, and it also extends to seeking medical help as victims tend to be hesitant to reveal the cause of their symptoms when seeking medical help. In most cases, these services are usually only made available for women. The police are not left out as there have been instances where police officers extort rape victims before agreeing to begin investigation, also they are not usually properly trained and so victims are at the risk of rape jokes and gaslighting from the officers. Most hospitals also lack enough rape kits to carry out medical examinations on victim and in some cases the staff also lack adequate training and empathy.
2.2 Toxic Masculinity
Views of masculinity play a pivotal role in the culture of victim blaming. Societal expectations of strength propagates the myth that men cannot be raped, and this downplays the effect of abuse on male victims. It usually results in denial and makes victims afraid to seek help after experiencing abuse. This is more prevalent when the perpetrator is a woman, the victim could be made subject to jokes about how they enjoyed the abuse, due to the societal beliefs that a man is weak for rejecting sex. In an extremely homophobic society like Nigeria, survivors exhibit internalised homophobia out of fear of people questioning their sexual orientation, especially when the perpetrator was a man. There are also situations where victims feel disgusted because they experienced arousal during the abuse, this usually makes them downplay or deny the effect of the abuse. However arousal does not in any way imply consent.
The "Boys don't cry'' stereotype is another deeply rooted source of toxic masculinity that makes boys unwilling to express hurt or open up about abuse, in order not to be regarded as weak. These negative reactions from people have adverse effects on victims like low self-esteem issues, guilt or self-blaming.
2.3 Lack of a Unified Legal Framework
Chapter 30 of the Criminal Code Act defines rape as:
“Any person who has unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman or girl, without her consent, or with her consent, if the consent is obtained by force or by means of threats or intimidation of any kind, or by fear of harm, or by means of false and fraudulent representation as to the nature of the act, or, in the case of a married woman, by personating her husband, is guilty of an offence which is called rape.”
The Penal Code has a similar definition that indicates that rape can only occur when there is vaginal penetration and as such doesn't recognise men as victims of rape. The broadened VAPP act is however only applicable in 13 states and this frustrates the whole process of seeking justice for rape victims. This evidently contributes to the low rate of rape convictions as a report by the International Center for Investigative Reporting, found that only 65 rape convictions have been made between 1973 and 2019. Survivors are more likely to speak up on abuse when they see stories of the conviction of rapists. Also, gay male rape victims face the fear of homophobia from the police who are not properly trained to handle these cases and in most cases regard it as a repercussion of them being homosexual. This is coupled with the fear of being targeted for harassment.
3.0 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR RAPE.
As seen in the definition of rape according to the Section 357 & 358 of the Nigerian Criminal Code, the offence of rape cannot be committed by a woman. The Criminal Laws of Lagos State in section 137 however indicated that anyone who has sexual intercourse with a child is guilty of rape, by virtue of this, it recognises that sexual assault of any child regardless of the gender is rape. The Penal Code however holds similar views with the Criminal Code. This is considered archaic in contrast to Scotland's Sexual Offences Act (2009) which states that rape involves penetration into the vagina, anus or mouth of another person without consent. This provision recognises that rape is not solely a man's trespass against a woman and that men can also be victims. The United Kingdom's Criminal Justice and Public Order Act further gave rape a redefinition after a long time of not recognising male adult rape. It defined it as nonconsensual anal as well as vaginal penetration. The Sexual Offence Act of 2003 similarly created a new offence "assault by penetration" which involves penetration of any kind without consent. In the same vein, Austria's Crimes (Rape) Act, 1991, has given rape a redefinition for a relatively long while. It defined rape as penetration of another person without consent or with knowledge that the person did not consent.
While some of these laws are not exhaustive, it is very clear that the Nigerian legislature is still very behind and needs to let go of her archaic laws that seem to be protecting the rapist. Section 253 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos defines rape as unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman by anyone other than her husband. This provision blatantly disregards marital rape and has been used by abusive men as a shield. It indicates that sexual relations between a married couple cannot be regarded as rape. It can be said that this provision stems from the same rationale as the one behind the earliest definition of rape as violation of an unmarried woman. It propagates the notion that women become their husband's properties once they get married.
The VAPP Act is the only piece of legislation that adequately provides for male rape. Section 1 clearly states that:
“A person commits the offence of rape if he or she intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person with any other part of his/her body or anything else without consent, or the consent is obtained by force.”
Getting more states to domesticate the Act and a thorough amendment of the Criminal Code would be a huge step to creating a concise legal framework for male rape.
4. 0 EFFECTS OF RAPE ON MALE VICTIMS
The effect of rape on male victims is not completely different from that of female victims. As the abuse has both long-term and short-term effects on victims. Some of them are:
4.1 Self Blame:
This is quite common, and it stems from societal response to cases of rape which usually ranges between doubt, victim shaming and insensitive jokes. This in turn affects the victim negatively as they tend to believe that their actions warranted the abuse. Homosexuals are exposed to people who think rape is the best "punishment" for their sexual orientation and this affects victims as they begin to think that they are to blame for the rapist's actions. In some cases, it results in them having issues accepting their sexual orientation as a result of the violent experience attached to what used to be a consensual sexual relation.
4.2 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
This basically involves triggers that make it difficult to recover from a traumatic experience. In this context, rape victims could experience PTSD in diverse forms, for example, sexual dysfunction; this is such that the victim become unable to have sexual interactions with other people. The slightest things like body contact, smell, or a place could trigger unpleasant memories for the victim. It does not help matters that most victims have a general distrust for the institutions put in place to provide care services due to the unavailability of well professionally trained counsellors to cater for the specific needs of male victims effectively, in other cases these services are usually too expensive for the victims.
4.3 Depression and Anger
In some cases, rape victims express their emotions in form of anger, hence they not only exhibit deep resentment for their assailant but for themselves as well for "letting" such happen to them. Men are expected to be in control and as such survivors tend to blame themselves for being helpless. Most times men never speak up about these trauma and this results in them bottling up all that anger. It inevitably affects their relations with people as they tend to be extremely guarded. Also, victims experience mood swings, flashes from the abuse and panic attacks.
4.4 Suicide Attempt/ Suicide
Some victims resort to self harm as a form of letting out their anger. Other times it could be general nonchalance to their wellbeing. And in a bid to numb their pain, they could resort to substance abuse, drugs, and alcohol.
4.5 Low Self Esteem/ Internalised homophobia
Rape, more often than not, leaves the victim damaged emotionally as they are left with negative thoughts that question their worth. A contributing factor to this being the fact that the victim’s body responded naturally to it either by having an erection or ejaculating, this makes it more traumatic for the victim and in some cases even question their sexuality as they are mostly ignorant of the fact that their body’s sexual response was an involuntary reflex. While for female victims, it is mostly associated with the "honour" attached to a woman’s sexuality. For men, it stems from a societal expectation of male strength. The feeling of helplessness negates the societal notion of masculinity and makes men feel dirty and weak.
CONCLUSION/RECOMMENDATION
As opposed to popular belief, male rape is not a relatively new menace. However, the lack of accurate reporting has resulted in an issue of misinformation and in some cases complete ignorance of this issue. It is therefore evident that the role of research and reporting on male rape cases are intertwined, more voices of survivors would help with accurate reporting and more literature will give survivors the courage to speak up. However, these efforts will be futile without the appropriate legal framework for this. The Nigerian Criminal Code and Penal Code provisions on rape are not only archaic but are also very instrumental to the low rate of court convictions as they are tilted towards protecting the abuser. Also, the judicial proceedings are not only slow but also put the burden of proof on survivors despite the obvious lack of appropriate systems to prove that rape has occurred. There is also the problem of ignorance, as many people do not have proper knowledge due to the fact that male rape has been treated as a taboo topic.
Therefore, there should be an increase in awareness on the prevalence of male rape, its effects on victims and what to do after being raped. Men need to be taught to unlearn toxic masculinity, and society in turn should create safe spaces for men to be vulnerable. Social justice organisations should also train their staff or hire trained professionals to cater to the legal, emotional, financial, ,and psychological needs of abuse survivors. The police officers are usually notorious for extorting victims and making them subject to insensitive jokes, therefore, they should be trained on how to handle rape cases, a sexual assault department solely for male victims could be set up with professionally trained officers. Also, hospitals should be equipped with easily accessible rape kits for survivors. Finally, pressure should be applied on members of the legislature in states in the country to domesticate the VAPP Act.
