Court sentences man to life imprisonment for defiling eight-year-old girl
A family court in Calabar, Cross River State, on Wednesday, sentenced a 47-year-old man, Ita Okon, to life imprisonment for raping an eight-year-old girl.
The Judge, Justice Blessing Egwu, who found the convict guilty of the offence, also ordered him to pay N1 million compensation
to the eight-year survivor.
Ms Egwu held that the penalty would serve as a deterrent to those thinking of carrying out such heinous crimes in future.
Mr James Ibor, the Principal Counsel of Basic Rights Counsel Initiative, the NGO that secured the conviction, James Ibor, commended the judgment, saying violence against women and girls must stop.
He said the judgment was a triumph of good over evil, especially in the fight against rape and other Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
in the 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.
(NAN)
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