Nigeria will be castrating convicted rapists from now on while child rapists will be executed.
The governor of Nigeria’s Kaduna state has signed a law saying men convicted of rape will face surgical castration.
Anyone raping a child under the age of 14 will face the death penalty under the new legislation.
Men convicted of raping children will have their testicles surgically removed before being executed.
It follows public anger over a recent increase of rapes amid Covid-19 restrictions, which prompted the nation’s state governors to declare a state of emergency, reports the Daily Mail.
Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai said the ‘drastic penalties are required to help further protect children from a serious crime’.
Reported cases of rape in Nigeria have risen dramatically during the months of Coronavirus restrictions.
The minister for women’s affairs said last December that two million women and girls were raped in the country each year.
In June she said that this number trebled, because females were locked down with their abusers.
Women’s groups have called for tougher action against rapists, including the death penalty.
Kaduna state’s new law is the strictest against rape in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.
The state’s newly amended penal code also says a person convicted of raping someone over age 14 will face life imprisonment.
The previous law carried a maximum penalty of 21 years’ imprisonment for the rape of an adult and life imprisonment for the rape of a child.
A woman convicted of rape of a child under 14 faces the removal of her fallopian tubes.