Law of Rape in Nigeria and England: Need to Re-Invent in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

This paper examines the law of rape in England and Wales, and Nigeria, showing the necessity for an urgent change in Nigeria’s domestic laws on rape - a form of gender-based violence - which is static in comparison with the ever changing law in England and Wales, from which the laws in Nigeria originated. The law on rape in Nigeria is too archaic and inadequate to deal with the rising cases of sexual violence in the country, underlined by the lethargy of the lawmakers to reinvent the law on the subject.