Law on capital sentence on pregnant women in Nigeria

Death sentence or capital punishment is the punishment provided for major offences like murder, armed robbery and kidnapping amongst others and it ranges from execution via firing squad, hanging or lethal injection.

And internationally, death penalty shall not be carried out on pregnant women and children. Also, in the 36 states of Nigeria including Lagos State, the law states that a pregnant woman shall be exempted from being sentenced to death. In lieu of the death sentence, she shall be sentenced to life imprisonment.

The status of the woman at the time of committing the offence is not what is considered but her status at the time of conviction.

Section 221(2) and (3) of the Child’s Right Act is about s about Restriction on punishment and it gives backing to this when it provided that “No expectant mother or nursing mother shall be subjected to the death penalty or have the death penalty recorded against her..

A pregnant woman cannot be sentenced to death. Under the Child’s Rights Act, she is to be detained in a Special Mothers Center and may be released when her child attains the age of 6 years or if the child dies and her release must however be sanctioned by a court.

Other provisions of the act include, “a court shall, on sentencing an expectant or a nursing mother, consider the imposition of a non‐institutional sentence as an alternative measure to imprisonment; where institutional sentence is mandatory or desirable, an expectant or a nursing mother shall be committed to and be held or detained at a Special Mothers Centre.

It also provides that no mother and child shall be held or detained at a Special Mothers Centre for a period longer than the time the child would have attained the age of six years and where a mother is released from a Special Mothers Centre due to the age of her child being six years before she has completed her sentence; or a child dies while with the mother at a Special Mothers Centre, the mother Shall be brought before the court which passed the original sentence to review the case and deal with her as appropriate, having regard to all the circumstances of the case.

Where a mother is further given a sentence of imprisonment as a result of a review under Subsection (6) of this section, the child shall be treated as a child in need for purposes of section 178 of this Act and may be committed to the care of either his father or a fit and proper person, by a committal order.

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The court will review her sentence and may grant or refuse her release from custody. 

However, the position of the law in the Federal Capital Territory is different; the pregnant woman shall be sentenced to death and her execution will be stayed until the baby is delivered and weaned.