By Ighomuaye Lucky. O
The Edo State Government has raised the alarm over the rising incidence of child defilement in the state, revealing that more than 70 cases were reported between January and July 2026, with fathers of the victims allegedly accounting for over half of the cases.
The Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Eugenia Abdallah, disclosed this on Thursday at the bi-monthly press conference organised by the Edo State Ministry of Information and Strategy.
According to Abdallah, the figures highlight the disturbing vulnerability of children to sexual abuse, particularly within the home, where perpetrators are often expected to provide care and protection.
She said children allegedly defiled by their fathers were between the ages of two and 10, describing the situation as deeply troubling and underscoring the urgent need for stronger child-protection measures across the state.
She spoke alongside the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Kassim Afegbua, and the Managing Director of the Edo State Geographic Information Service (EdoGIS), Dr Innocent Bello.
Her words: “Mostly, 50 per cent are abused by their own fathers, with the victims ranging 2 to 10 years. For instance, there is a little girl currently in our custody who was impregnated by her father. She is just 14 years old and is eight months pregnant as we speak. The case was reported to us by a neighbour.
“When we asked her about her father, she told us that she had lost her father and pleaded with us not to have him arrested. Meanwhile, she is the only person who can tell us where her father is.”
The Commissioner, however, expressed the state government’s commitment to ensuring that vulnerable citizens are not merely identified but protected; adding “that survivors are not merely heard but supported; that women are not merely trained but provided opportunities for economic advancement; and that social-protection programmes increasingly produce measurable outcomes.”
Also speaking on steps taken by the state government to protect residents of the state, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy reiterated the government’s ban on movement of motorcycles in the Benin metropolis, adding that it’s for security reason.
He added: “We are not pretending about it. The reason why this was done was purely for security reasons. And the kind of reports we get on a daily basis have become a security concern to us. People use Okada (motorcycle) to kidnap people, to do robbery. They carry their passengers, they take them to a lonely place and dispossess them of their belongings.”
Speaking on the issues of Davido writing the President Donald Trump on Osun forthcoming election, Afegbua said it was a joke taken beyond the limit.
On his part, the Managing Director, EdoGIS, while giving reason for delay in release of land documents to applicants said “what is responsible for most delay in land documents processing is as a result of detection of fake application documents in many cases, and that includes survey plans, task clearance, fake ID, etc.”
