No fewer than 20 persons accused of raping underaged girls have been prosecuted and convicted in various courts of law in Ekiti State in the last one year.

The Chairman of the state chapter of International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), Mrs Funke Anoma, disclosed this on Thursday at the commencement of the 2017 Annual Law Week of the body in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital.

The Ekiti FIDA Annual Law Week, themed: “The Role of Stakeholders in the 21st Century Childcare,” had guest speakers which include three Senior Advocates, Mallam Yusuf Alli, Mr Ifedayo Adedipe and Mr John Baiyeshea.

Mrs Anoma explained that FIDA is poised to tackle incidences of rape, sexual abuse of minors and women and all forms of violence noting that babies are not exempted from the scourge of rape in the state.

“There are gross exploitation of women and children, with more internally displaced children everywhere you turn to, and scary social media crimes among our youths reflecting in more child offenders.

“We have been doing our best to protect rights of women. We are currently prosecuting so many accused persons for gender based violence and sexual assault.

“We are indeed happy that we are gradually overcoming the challenge of stigmatization because we have devised ways to protect the identities of victims. We used to keep their identities with high level of secrecy. Sensitization has helped to bring out victims to report to us or proper action and we are making progress.

“Some of them were even bold to testify in courts because we now have a family court which was a special court handling such matters,” she added.