Kids raped of their innocence by parents

Recounting her story, Hajara Lawal (not real name), said that she was seven when her dad started touching her, adding that he would come into her room at night to cuddle her to sleep and left afterwards.  Continuing, she said: “When I turned 10, he started fondling my body, I lost my virginity to my […]

Recounting her story, Hajara Lawal (not real name), said that she was seven when her dad started touching her, adding that he would come into her room at night to cuddle her to sleep and left afterwards.
 Continuing, she said: “When I turned 10, he started fondling my body, I lost my virginity to my father, but that was not the worst. I don’t know how my brother found out, and he started blackmailing me and I eventually had to start sleeping with him.
 “When my mates were giggling about their virginity and boyfriends and all the silly things girls talk about in secondary school, I was more experienced and I felt older than my age.”
 Hajara’s story is akin to the many stories of girls who are unfortunately exposed to sex at an early age by someone who is supposed to be their caregiver- father, brother or uncle.
 It was an open secret that in one of the states in Nigeria, a certain father used to deflower his female kids before giving them out for marriage. Whenever he was confronted, he will say the children were sired by him and so he has the authority to do as he pleases. 
Today, the social media has gone viral with reports of adults who molest vulnerable children in their custody. Even more shocking is the fact that these kids are not teenagers but children of between the ages of three years and above mostly molested by their father.
 The story reported by various media outlets revealed that when a mother involved the police, she was told to go back home and resolve the issue because it was a family matter.
 Many of such issues are not reported and in some scenarios the children are blamed for what happened to them. In very few cases  the adult culprits made to face the law, said Professor Chidi Odinkalu, the chairman, board of the National Human Right Commission.
 “These matters cannot be said to be family matters, the full weight of the law must fall on them whoever it is, this is sad. What has happened to our strong family traditions?” he said.
“All relevant agencies need to take dressing and address the issues squarely,” argued the Director-General of the National  Centre for Women Development, Onyeka Owenu.
Mr Micheal Joseph, a civil servant, said: “The world is definitely coming to an end, a father sleeping with his daughter, a seven-year-old? This is an abomination, a sacrilege, God forbid. I can never do that to my daughter and I will deal with whoever does that to my child, I can even kill the person, look the law must be up and doing. This country is turning into something else. These parents must be killed or jailed for life.” 
 But then, the issues are becoming worse as the national survey conducted by the National Population Commission, United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that there is an unimaginable high prevalence of violence against children in Nigeria.
According to the survey, approximately six out of every ten Nigerian children, under the age of eighteen years, experience some form of physical, emotional and sexual violence before the age of eighteen.
“One in two children experience physical violence, one in four girls and one in ten boys experience sexual violence, and one in six girls and one in five boys experience emotional violence.”
The permanent secretary , Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, Dr Ezekiel Oyemomi, noted that the survey covered every state in Nigeria and dealt with issues of prevalence, locations and perpetrators of violence, as well as service seeking behaviour and key mental and physical health impact for children during childhood and into adulthood.
 “Children are suffering extreme levels of violence at a very young age (the innocent suffers from the villain’s unchecked rampage), and at places that are supposed to be safe haven and, unfortunately, they are not telling anyone about it.
 “Majority of children never tell anyone about their experience and less than 5% of children who experience violence ever receives the support they need to recover.”
Dr Vincent Odenze, a mental health specialist and psychiatrist, said that children who are molested by a parent live with the scars for life and never enjoy complete bliss unless they are opportune  to seek care for their state of mind.
 He added that most of them loss their innocence and balance and seek solace in drugs and alcohol and even become violent in nature.
“Most of the patients, especially the female ones that I have treated, have been molested by a close one, father, brother, uncle, close relative or neighbour, some become sex addicts while others are turned off from sex for life and this becomes a problem in their marital homes.”
Odinkalu, however, noted that “social and counseling homes to rehabilitate these kids are in short supply, and most agencies are actually unaware of how to handle these matters.”
He said that advocacy at all levels of government is necessary, adding: “Anyone who violates a child has a disorder, it’s a disease that is why the US centre for disease is here. When you do this to a child you make it impossible for the child to develop and you damage the very fibre that would have shaped this unique individual.”
 The United Nation Children Fund Representative, Jean Gough, who was represented by Rachael Harvey, noted that in most cases persons who perpetuate these sexual acts are persons who were also exposed to them at an early stage and did not see anything wrong with them.
She said: “Nigeria is the first country in west Africa to conduct the survey, the sixth in Africa and the ninth in the world to do so. The findings of the survey show that violence impacts millions of children’s lives every year across Nigeria. It is a problem that transcends social and economic status. It impacts rich and poor, urban and rural, educated and out of school children.”
 However,the Permanent Secretary of Women Affairs and Social Development Ministry, Dr Ezekiel Oyemomi, said that most of the culprits do not go scot free. 
“Rape is Rape, irrespective of who is involved, whether father, brother or uncle, the culprit will be jailed for a period of twenty years,” he said.