Beloved parents and school heads, I thought it was a Nollywood caption but it was not a fiction but a reality: “Police corporal rapes two-year-old girl in Mararaba, Nasarawa State.” In another case the story was too bizarre to me that I loathed buying the newspaper. In the story, a man allegedly raped a 22 month old baby. In his defense, the man claimed that it was not a rape but rather while trying to stop the baby from crying, he carried her and subsequently had an erection. This he claimed led him to releasing his sperm on the laps of the baby. He went ahead to claim that there was no penetration but rather a release! In another case in far away Kenya, some men who gang raped a teenager where punished by the police. And the punishment to the dismay of the Kenyan civil right groups was just compelling the men to cut the grass. The statistics is wide and wild. The statistics is also alarming, and spine chilling.
I praise the editorial of The Punch Newspaper of Tuesday 5th November 2013 titled, “Addressing rising epidemic of rape cases.” As if they were hell bent on this crusade against rape, they published this time a cartoon in which a man reading the headline of a newspaper goes through these screaming headlines: “Woman 46, Allegedly Raped and Killed.” “Man Rapes, kills 10-year-old cousin.” “Man, 26, rapes 76-year-old widow to death.” “Boy, 14, rapes 9-year-old girl to death.” Then the man concluded, “Wasted generation, indeed the men folk now think with their loins instead of their brains.” (The Punch, Tuesday November 12, 2013). These statistics on cartoon are not mere caricatures but true. According to the aforementioned Punch Newspaper editorial, “A consultant pathologist in the Central Hospital, Benin, Edo State, sounded the alarm that the hospital recorded more than 80 rape cases from March to mid-October this year alone. Bad enough, 90 per cent of rape cases are committed by people close to and trusted by the victims, people such as neighbours and relations. Sometimes, those who ought to protect the children are their tormentors as was the case when a police corporal recently raped a two-year-old girl in Mararaba, Nasarawa State.” Early this year I started this column that addressed matters of sex and relationship. I was labeled by some people as a sick man who only writes about sex. I saw this as just a means by which the devil was trying to discourage me from speaking out against some ills and also equipping our generation with the right information which most men dare not to give out. I think that the daily report of rape cases around us and in the news media is enough wake-up call for parents and school heads to rise to occasion. Their rising to occasion should not just end with a call for the enactment of laws to punish offenders but they should also take a preventive stance. Prevention as popularly known is better than cure. We can equip our children with information that can help them spot a rapist and his antics. We can also take proactive measures within our homes and school environment to stem the ugly tide of rape.
School heads should regularly monitor and carry out a mental and psychological health audit of their staff in terms of their attitude towards the opposite sex. Why will a school still keep teachers who are touted to have conducted themselves inappropriately towards their pupils? Why will a head teacher shun reports of men who “finger” their female pupils and in most cases the pupils have been stopped from speaking out by shouting them down, “Keep your mouth shut, how did you know about that, who thought you about issues concerning a man and a woman?” Parents and teachers should no longer play the ostrich by thinking that primary school children are ignorant about matters of sex. The uncensored nature of our homes in terms of movies and sex oriented music and pictures are enough to launch these young innocents into the climes of sex. I have thought in a primary school where the proprietor ensured that the toilets were well differentiated according to sexes and that a female teacher accompanied the female students to ease themselves and vice versa. The toilets of these children should not be located far away from the classroom where the low lives who sometimes are the gardeners and security men can hound and rape them. The dress code of the female pupils can be radically redesigned to prevent them from exposing their underpants which they are unaware of. Some schools have Physical Education and school uniforms that are too sensitive for the females. You may wonder why such precaution for innocent children, but consider this saying, “Since men have learned to shoot without missing, I have learned to fly without perching.”
On the part of parents, it is now a necessary precaution to ensure that the nakedness of your even day old baby girl is not unnecessarily exposed to the men who only think with their loins! In most largely populated residential areas it is common to find female toddlers who are allowed to roam the neighborhood or veranda with no clothes on. This is no longer fashionable. Parents should let their children know that they can be raped. Why hide this fact from them only to apply it as medicine after death? Parents should teach their female children not to ease themselves publicly as it is no longer news that some mentally deranged men are turned on by the sight of the private parts of children. (Please, allow me to say tufiakwa at this juncture). Our children have no option than to learn to treat their nakedness with utmost privacy. We must not wait for the Government to enact laws that will protect our children; we should protect our children by also educating them. Parents should not exclusively entrust their female children to male caretakers especially if they are going on long journey. Therefore, parents and schools who produce instructional materials that relate to character and moral foundation should be encouraged rather than making fun at them. We must also encourage tabloids like “The Trumpeta Newspaper” who have allowed this crusade to continue unhindered. Thank you!
