On the 'darkness of dark figure' of sexual crimes: Survivors' rape reporting experiences with the Nigerian police

While extensive studies have identified the influence of social perception and victims' self-blame as factors responsible for underreporting of rape, fewer studies have explored victims' interaction with police officers and possible impacts this could have on victims' reporting behavior. There-fore, this study explores rape victims' interaction with officers of the Nigerian Police in the course of seeking justice. Twenty-seven victims of rape who interacted with police and six key in-formants working in women advocacy groups were interviewed in a qualitative study. Findings indicated that participants perceived police officers to have engaged in victim-blaming, slut -shaming, lack of empathy, refusal to cooperate with counsel, and delaying investigative pro-cesses. Evidence from the study suggests that police officers manifest influence from social ste-reotypes and rape scripts in their perception of rape victims. The study suggests the deployment of a special anti-sexual violence unit within the police, consisting of well-trained and skilled personnel in sexual crimes.