At
the young age five, a young lady has spoken out on how she was sexually
abused by a young man who was among about a dozen people squatting
under her parent's roof.
A cross section of young nigerian girls at the seminar
Speaking on Saturday at a one-day seminar tagged 'Guard Against Rape' organized
by CEE-HOPE Foundation in Lagos, 23-year old Ms. Thompson who is
studying Political Science at the National Open University of Nigeria,
has narated how she was sexually abused at age five by a young man who
was among a dozen of people squatting under her parent’s roof.
She narates...
"We had a small room in the house where he stays. He invited me
to the room and said ‘Do you know you are a very beautiful girl?’ I
said ‘Yes I am.’ He opened the biscuits for me and gave me and I was
eating it.
"Then he started touching me and I was like ‘Uncle what are you
doing?’ He pressed on and before you knew it the deed was done. I
started crying and he was like I shouldn’t cry. He said I shouldn’t tell
anybody because this biscuit you have eaten is like an oath. If you do
tell mummy, you will die."
The founder of CEE-HOPE, Betty Abah, said the seminar was aimed at
sensitizing young girls on the dangers of rape and how to handle rape
situations, especially during the Valentine period.
According to her, if children are sensitized early enough, they would be able to prevent rape situations. "We
brought them together from different places, this is the first time
they are coming together from all these places and we thought that this
period of Valentine will be very appropriate to talk about rape," said Mrs. Abah
Chinyere Anokwuru, a former Senior Special Assistant to the Lagos
State government on Women and Girls who is a speaker at the seminar,
also narrated her rape story of how she was sexually abused as a girl.
She said after the initial sexual molestation when she was five,
the practice continued for the next 15 years with perpetrators ranging
from friends, uncles, strangers, and relatives.
"At seven, there was this old man that do visit, a close pal to
my dad. He’s old enough to be my grandpa. Nobody ever thought that such
a thing was going to happen between the both of us. He was always
throwing his open, like he calls me ‘sweets’ and other endearing names.
"My father, especially, don’t take offense with that because he
felt there was nothing to that. My father is a very hard man so I had
this fear telling him. My mother was always travelling."
Ms. Thompson said she still remembers about 12 people who had raped her before she clocked 20.
"I have moved on. I’m 23 now. I will not allow that trauma to
weigh me down. I will pretend like nothing ever happened. Left for me, I
think rapists should be killed."
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