Importance of Artificial Intelligence as Evidence in Cases between Underage Victims of Rape and Offenders in Nigeria

Abstract

Underage girls are gradually becoming the major victims of rape in some developing countries such as Nigeria in recent years. Many of such cases of rape were either underreported or unreported to relevant authorities. Some of these underage victims of rape have experienced trauma, stigmatization, and depression which have affected their well-being. While some of the victims of rape are battling to overcome the negative outcome of the act, other victims among them have lost their lives because there was no prompt help for them to survive it. The perpetrators of the crime who were responsible for the crime were not equally punished for their crime because of lack of verifiable evidence that associated them with the act and the victim of rape. However, to demand justice for the underage victims of rape, Artificial Intelligence (AI) serves as a vital technology that can be used to present evidence in the case of rape between the victim of rape and the offenders. The objective of this article is to examine the importance of AI in presenting an evidence-based method in cases of rape between the underage victims of rape and offenders in society. The paper adopted a descriptive theoretical approach in the study. The paper revealed that AI technology is important and can be used to establish evidence in cases of rape between underage girls and offenders through some AI application methods, such as surveillance devices, facial recognition, DNA match, video and photo analysis, and object retrieval analysis among others.