{"id":77023,"date":"2025-10-21T16:57:41","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T16:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=77023"},"modified":"2025-10-21T16:57:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T16:57:41","slug":"senate-approves-life-jail-term-for-sexual-offences-against-minors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/10\/21\/senate-approves-life-jail-term-for-sexual-offences-against-minors\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Approves Life Jail Term for Sexual Offences Against Minors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Huldah Shado<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Senate has passed a bill prescribing life imprisonment for anyone convicted of engaging in sexual intercourse with a minor, with no option of a fine.<\/p>\n<p>The legislation, part of the Criminal Code (Amendment) Bill, 2025, was earlier approved by the House of Representatives and seeks to strengthen child protection and eliminate gender bias in sexual offence laws.<\/p>\n<p>Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele, who led debate on the bill, said the amendment increases the penalty for defilement from five years to life imprisonment, reflecting lawmakers\u2019 zero-tolerance stance on crimes against minors.<\/p>\n<p>He added that the move underscores the National Assembly\u2019s commitment to safeguarding children\u2019s rights and ensuring justice for victims of sexual abuse.<\/p>\n<p>The bill will be transmitted to President Bola Tinubu for assent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Huldah Shado The Senate has passed a bill prescribing life imprisonment for anyone convicted of engaging in sexual intercourse with a minor, with no option of a fine. The legislation, part of the Criminal Code (Amendment) Bill, 2025, was earlier approved by the House of Representatives and seeks to strengthen child protection and eliminate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":77024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,186],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-77023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77025,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77023\/revisions\/77025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}