SAVE THE CHILD

“I was in the room, sleeping when my father called me to warm soup in the kitchen. Few minutes later, he called me to meet him in the bed room. I thought he wanted to punish me when he called me, because I’m always scared of him and my step-mother.

“They treat me bad. Before I knew what was happening, my father had pushed me on the bed and pounced me. He tore off my pants and penetrated me.

“I wanted to shout, but his weight was too much for me. My father is fat and I was struggling not to stop breathing. I was struggling to push him off!

“When he finally got up and left, I was bleeding from my private part seriously. I could not walk. But I managed to call the attention of an elderly woman in our street.”
The woman cautioned her and told her not to let anyone hear about the incident since it is an abomination.

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“Immediately I left the woman’s house, I went to a pay call center to call Mrs. Toyosi Bello in Ogijo. I explained the incident to her,” (Culled from nairalandnews)

Stories like this may sound bizarre and foreign, but in reality, incest is happening around us and the girl child is not only threatened by the society she lives in, but also by those she has grown to love and respect at home. Parents who are supposed to protect, love and guide their children are now predators.

Victims of incest usually lack the courage to divulge these crimes against them because in most cases they are threatened into submission. Child victims are always devastated and suffer from depression, anxiety, eating disorders, poor self-esteem, stigmatization, sleep disturbances, dissociation and anxiety. In most cases, they may exhibit inappropriate sexual knowledge and desires. Simply put, child victims suffer from complex trauma. 

Our Judicial System has gone a long way to rid our society of fathers and men like these. In Benin, a father was jailed 7 years for raping his 12 year old daughter. In Ikorodu, Lagos State,a driver, Philip Michael was sentenced  to 14 years imprisonment for having unlawful carnal knowledge of his daughter which resulted in pregnancy. Indeed, there are a plethora of arrests and convictions for this act of bestiality but are these punishments strict enough?  Are these criminals repentant after being confined in jail for a short period of time?

In truth, most of these parents after serving their jail terms come out undeterred. A case in point is Akinnusi, a Lagos father who impregnated his daughter twice. He boasted before the police that he would get lighter judgment and come out of jail to continue with his daughter. According to him; “It is not a new thing that a man has sex with his daughter and even if I am jailed at the end,  I will surely come out after serving my jail term. But  I promise that my daughter will join me” he  had threatened.  It therefore goes without saying that more needs to be done. It is time for our obsolete laws to be amended and provisions made for longer jail terms as applicable in other countries like South Africa and the US where a Nigerian father was sentenced to 90 years in prison for raping his daughters. 

It is wrong for parents to take advantage of or be sexually involved with their children or any child in their care. Nigerians must unite to fight against incest in our society. Nigerians and indeed the world must work together to save the Nigerian child and children all over the world from wolves in the guise of loving parents.This abomination must stop now!