STILL WE WEEP FOR THEM..

About one month ago, a friend of mine told me about an ten year old girl who was gang-raped by three adult men. When she was found, she was all torn and bloodied up. She had suffered so much. I immediately took a keen interest in the case. I called the most available close relative of the victim's father and kept in touch with him.

Reports were made to the Police and arrests were made. We were relieved that justice would be served. And like every horror movie, these men were released on bail, very shortly after they were arrested, upon the payment of fifty thousand naira each. Worse still, the girl's father took her to the village and has been hiding there with the girl since then. This case has hit a major brickwall now. The victim is missing, her father, unreachable.

This one situation goes to show how dangerously mild we treat cases of abuse of the girl child in Nigeria. Once, I read a statistical report that showed that one out of every five Nigerian women had been abused in various ways as children. I truly concur to this fact. The shocking fact is that even the male children are not left out. At least two out of ten boys that I know or are acqueised with were abused as kids. Most of them, children from privileged homes.

Most times, we wonder why our youths enjoy sexual gratification so much. It is displayed in every part of the youthfully dominated spectre of our society. Check out the music churned out, the videos that follow them, the movies being made. Most of them are sexually explicit. Half of the artistes are in their teenage years and early twenties. I'll tell you the reason. Most of them became sexually active at a very impressionable age. A friend once told that at about the age of six, their househelp at that time had given him enough b***jobs to last him a lifetime. Another one told me that shortly before his ninth birthday, one of his father's nurses made him sleep with her frequently. Just imagine!

Let us put the government aside for now. Let us face the families, the most basic units of the society. There are so many career run women now that the number of househelps too have gone on a spiral increase. It is so dizzying. Children are left totally in the trust of these helps, who in turn use these innocent kids to exploit their own budding sexualities.

Parents in our generation have lost the sense of maternally instinctive protective traits. They don't know how to communicate, even read their children anymore. A child suddenly curls up and becomes reclusive and the mother thinks she needs a new toy, ice cream or a new clothe. It is so saddening that parents have comfortably allowed cartoon network, Nicklelodeon, etc to determine how the child interacts with the world. They no longer think genuflecting while greeting elders count anymore. The other day, my nephew was screaming at his mum, telling her to shut up. A three year old fa!

Back to the original issue, while we continue to seek justice for the victims, we must also seek to prevent the occurence of such unfortunate events. The family and the society at large must strive at all times to protect these vulnerable ones.