Commentary: Appraising Anambra’s Violence Against Persons’ (Prohibition) Law

Written By: AMAKA EZEANO

It is instructive that there are arguably more incidents of violence against women than men in Anambra State which may occur in the homes, churches, offices, markets, motor parks, and even in commercial buses. Society blames the victim, justifies the perpetrator’s acts, while the system tacitly condones the violence.

Overtime, the judicial system has grappled with the obnoxious Criminal Code which limits the criminal jurisdiction of rape and no longer in tandem with the present day realities. In 2015, the Federal Government signed the gender neutral Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, (VAPP) into law. But Section 27 of the Act limits its application to the Federal Capital Territory High Court. Therefore, each state must domesticate the Act before it becomes operational. In 2017, the Governor of Anambra State, Sir Willie Obiano, signed the (VAPP) Act into law, making the state one of the few states to domesticate it.

 The VAPP law (of Anambra State), 2017 confers jurisdiction on the Magistrate and State High Courts. Section 3 of the VAPP law expands the criminal jurisprudence of rape. The offence of rape is no longer restricted to penetrations. Rape is complete upon non-consensual penetration of the victim’s orifices or any of the perpetrator’s body parts, or even with an object. Under the VAPP law, males and females can be victims as well as perpetrators of rape.

In the state, incidents abound of married women being forcefully ejected from their matrimonial homes. This is criminalized in Section eleven of the VAPP law. Another interesting part of the law is the recognition of forced financial dependence or economic abuse as a punishable offence. The VAPP law describes economic abuse as denial of inheritance or succession rights, unreasonable deprivation of economic or financial resources to which any person is entitled or which any person requires out of necessity, including the unreasonable destruction of household effects or other property in which any person has interest.

On different occasions, for the purpose of exerting control, women, against their will, have been prohibited by their husbands from being employed or have had their phones and/or any other properties that are necessary for the delivery of their jobs seized or destroyed. The VAPP law prohibits such acts.

It is gratifying that Section 16 of the law criminalizes emotional, verbal and psychological abuse.  This is a pattern of degrading or humiliating conduct towards any person, including repeated acts of insults, name calling or ridicule, threats to cause emotional pain, the exhibition of obsessive possessiveness which constitutes serious invasion of such a person’s privacy, liberty, integrity or security.

This is very common in many markets and among bus and tricycle drivers and conductors who touch, ridicule, cat-call and call women unprintable and uncomplimentary names in the public for the sole purpose of causing humiliation.

The fundamental rights of poor widows are constantly breached, especially childless widows. Traditionally, conservative men and women perceive a woman who had borne only daughters as ‘childless’ and considered incapable of inheriting as she herself is a piece of property to be inherited.  VAPP criminalizes such harmful widowhood practices.

Notably, provisions of VAPP law supersede any other provisions on similar offences in the principal criminal legislation in the state. The prerogatives of VAPP law include its conformity to the present day and international best practices. For effective implementation, there is need for massive sensitization of the law, coupled with willingness on the part of the police to exercise the powers bestowed upon them by Section 37 of the law.