Time for national summit on rape

Hardly a day passes without reading about rape in the papers, the fear is that we are becoming used to it, with the authorities not seeming to do enough to make the perpetrators face severe penalty. This is probably why the culprits are going about it without fear of sanctions, which we should do everything […]

Hardly a day passes without reading about rape in the papers, the fear is that we are becoming used to it, with the authorities not seeming to do enough to make the perpetrators face severe penalty.
This is probably why the culprits are going about it without fear of sanctions, which we should do everything to change, because rape is a crime that we cannot afford to tolerate. It is debasing and humiliating that one would not even wish it on one’s greatest enemy.
Many articles have been written on rape, but as far as it persists or even increases, it is a duty on us to also keep harping on it.
However , the worst form of rape or sexual abuse is one being done by a family member especially a father. For the life of me, I cannot imagine a father ‘touching’ his own daughter, of all the women in the world, it is his own daughter that he wants to sleep with.
Such men do not deserve to be called fathers , because fathers are supposed to provide security and comfort to their own children, but when they turn out to be the abusers it is jail that should be their home.
But in many cases the family covers up to avoid stigma and even the police ask them to settle it among themselves if the matter is reported to them.
Nonetheless the victims end up suffering and must feel that the government has neglected them to do the needful to combat the crime.
Just recently a father in Lagos was abusing his seven-year- old daughter for some time, until he got caught and taken to the police. He was said to give her ten naira (N10.00) when he abused her.
Also one father caught sleeping with his young daughter said he slept with her only twice! Does the number make it less heinous?
Early this month, two married men were arrested in Abuja by tricking a 13-year -old girl to follow them to see her mother who was not at home one night. She thought something happened to  her mother, only for them to take her to an uncompleted building and raped her.
Few days later there was a report of a 12-year-old rape victim that tested HIV positive. She had been repeatedly raped by her 25-year-old brother Abdullahi Muhammad and his friends for four years.
On the same day was a report of the arrest of one Alyatu Abdullahi for allegedly raping a 13-year-old sachet water seller along with his two friends by the Suleja Emirate Vigilante Organisation, Madalla branch.
In something akin to horror, in the same segment of the newspaper, a man nicknamed ‘okada rapist’ was arrested few days after the original report on the rape.  The victim boarded the ‘okada’ and he diverted it to the bush and raped her.
This week a 30-year- old married man has been accused of raping  small girls in Kaduna, where the girls said he used to give them N5.00 and N10.00 when they were sent on errand by their parents and lure them into a room as they live in the same compound.
It is true that some unscrupulous men lure hawkers somewhere to rape them, or lure small girls with delicacies and other tricks of kindness; however it is the rape at home by fathers, brothers, uncles and other close family members that poses great challenge. This is because if you eliminate the circumstance of raping hawkers and others by outsiders, how would you tackle the rapists at home?
This is a serious problem that calls for a special summit and changing our laws to sentence rapists to life imprisonment, so as for them to know that it can no longer be tolerated.
They cannot ruin other people’s life and continue to enjoy their own life by getting lenient judgment.
At one time, there was an organization that called for the castration of rapists, however if a summit is held, every avenue should be explored to bring an end to this menace that is threatening to destabilise our society.
The place of religious leaders on this crime is very important, are they telling people what is right and what is wrong?
 Whatever the case may be, they are critical stakeholders in this sin going on under their nose, even though some among them are also guilty of rape or sexual abuse under the guise of ‘deliverance’ or exorcising evil ‘spirit’.
In any event, we need a society where women are safe and not a lawless one where young boys grow  up with the mindset that it is OK to rape or sexually abuse a woman (girls).