Sponsor of the Sexual Offences Bill,  Senator Chris Anyanwu, has said special registers would be opened for rapists and other sexual abuse offenders across the country whenever the bill is finally  signed into law.

The bill, which passed the second reading last week, was supported by most of the senators, who advocated stiffer punishments for rapists and pedophiles in order to serve as a deterrent to others
and to curb the criminal act.

Anyanwu,  who led the debate, told our correspondent that  novel ideas had been injected into the bill aimed at ensuring sanity in relationships.

She said, “Some of the things that we have inserted in this new law are very novel. For instance, if someone had been established to be a serial rapist or a pedophile,  we will register him in a register of rapists and pedophiles so that such a person can not be employed in a school, in a church or anywhere that young and harmless children will fall victim to his crime.

“Some of these things are compulsive things being carried out by people who had developed mental problems and they can’t help themselves and where we have to treat them as it is being done in
other part of the world. We should put them away from where they will not do the society, any more harm.”

Anyanwu added that there was also provision in the bill to protect witnesses and victims of sexual abuse. She said, “In some places where these crimes were commited by powerful individuals or even very strong men in a neighborhood going forward to accuse him and to be a witness, exposes him to danger and so, people keep mum, they can’t talk, witnesses are afraid to come forward.

“This law now makes it possible for witnesses as well as victims to be protected.  The victim is not exposed to ridicule and ostracism in their environment.

“That is people will not know a person that had fallen victim. That is why, with this bill, we encourage people to come forward with information and they are protected even when they are identified, their identity will be protected.

“We are also calling that a unit in the police force be trained specially to investigate sexual abuse. This is necessary because when victims come forward these days,  they are completely damaged and destroyed by the way the police officers ridicle them, especially women, they ridicule them and cause them more havoc than the rape itself