By Cosmas Omegoh
Some years ago, nobody would think that a time would come when fathers would be defiling their own biological daughters serially. But now, it is happening. Yes, in the past, it was unthinkable that some persons would rape a toddler less than three years of age and simply lacerate her. Now, it is happening. Also then, not many thought anyone straight from the pit of hell would attempt to deflower a minor, clean her up with a white handkerchief and then head straight to a native doctor’s coven for money rituals. This is also happening.
Sadly, as time ticks away, weird stuffs happen. “New normal” keeps tumbling in, pushing the society to accept the culture of the unacceptable. What continues to happen signals that something about the family and the society has snapped. Something which once sustained the sacredness and sanctity of family and societal life has fallen off.
Recalling how far things have gone South lately with the society, Celina Asala of the Advocate for Children and Vulnerable Persons Network told our correspondent that “incidents of adults defiling minors nowadays are currently on the rise.
“We have cases of fathers defiling their daughters and nieces, younger adults defiling the little ones in their care. We have many of such cases in court right now.”
While corroborating her account, Mr Toyin Okalawon of the Centre for Community Rights and Advocacy said that “child defilement is on the rise. Recently, we have been having cases involving minors defiled by their fathers, relatives and neigbours.”
The Lagos State Police Command spokesman, Mr Adekunle Ajisebutu acknowledged that incidents of child defilement had been going in recent times.
Hear him: “Yes, since I assumed office, some cases of child defilement have been reported to me. The command is already dealing with such cases.”
Accounts of the evil
In Lagos recently, a father of six, identified as Sunday Julius, was arrested for allegedly serially defiling three of his daughters whose ages were put at 10,11, and 15.
The man who lives in Alimosho area was allegedly arrested following a complaint by his wife, Semiat, at the Mosholashi Police Station. She claimed that he had been in the act for about seven years.
Semiat, told the media that Julius always committed the act at night hours, and in the day too, when she was away.
He took turn with his three daughters, without any of them knowing what he was doing with the other.
To help throw light on the ugly experience, NGOs gave a blow by blow account of what they have been seeing in the fields.
One of them, Okalawon said: “We have a three-year-old who was taken to a nanny’s place and the nanny’s husband was defiling her, by inserting his finger into the toddler’s private part.
“This incident happened in Ikorodu area three months ago. We got the perpetrator arrested and taken to court last month. The case comes up again in November.
“We also have the case of a girl being defiled by their neighbour; she told her mother about it, but she shut her down. She didn’t allow the girl to complete her story and never bothered to investigate her claim.
“But it was through her school that we got to know. She was playing with her mates when they said, let’s swear if no man had ever touched any of us. On getting to her turn, the girl felt cold.
“Luckily, when her teacher who happened to be the school’s counsellor called her, she relayed the story of how a man had been defiling her; when we heard that, we moved in and got the man arrested and charged him to court.
“We have another case of a Yahoo-Yahoo boy who defiled a five-year-old in Bariga, Lagos recently and used a white handkerchief to clean the girl.”
If the accounts of Okalawon are worrisome, those of Asala are more shocking:
“We have pastors, men of God molesting kids. They are men of God, but we tag them ‘men of doom.’ They are meant to be protectors, but the reverse is the case.
“We have one of such in Ogun State, a father, a pastor who started defiling her daughter and molesting her shortly after the death of his wife. He procured abortion thrice for the girl and after that, started family planning for her.
“At some point, it was sex-for-food. If the girl denied her father, he would starve her.
“The girl had to run away from home; presently the man is in police custody in the state.
“There was also a pastor who defiled two teenagers who are siblings; he impregnated both sisters at the same time last year in Oshodi – one is 15, the other, 13. The girls just put to bed. They are now in the custody of the Lagos State government.
“We have another case in court involving a three-year-old. But the mother loves her husband so dearly; she wants the matter resolved; she does not want it to continue. But we are pressing on with the case.”
Asala is unhappy as she said that “we see situations where the women want to protect their husbands; when these cases are charged to court, they don’t show up. These are some of the issues we are facing.”
Worrisome trend
The NGO workers and the police have expressed worries that the society is witnessing an upsurge in adults defiling minors.
“To tell you the truth,” Asala said, “if there is another adjective stronger than saying we are ‘worried,’ I would used it.
“I can only say that we are saddened and sickened; the situation is highly disheartening; it is heart-rendering because each day, we have multiple reports too hard to believe and too difficult to bear.”
On his part, Okalawon noted that “we are worried because we discovered that some of those perpetrators even need help. Some of them were abused without getting some psycho-social support.
“The situation is getting explosive and might burst soon.”
Ajisebutu told our correspondent that aside cases involving pedophiles, “we are worried about every crime committed irrespective of the nature. As a responsible organisation determined not only to prevent crime, but to fight it, we should be worried wherever and whenever any crime is committed. And so we are doing what we can to curtail such acts.”
Why child defilement persists
For Okalawon, “once someone is abused and fails to get wise counsel or be taken care of, he will likely going to be an abuser. That is the angle that is complicating the matter.
“Right now, we also have some minors that are not well taken care off within the neigbourhood. They are lured and given noodles, a token, and so on. This is caused by parental failure.”
He is unhappy that the COVID-19 challenge in the country has slowed down some activists’ drive to tackle the menace.
He said: “Before now, we used to go to schools, markets to sensitise the people and some will get the awareness and take it back home. We also used to tell people how they can take care of their children, but all that is no more because of COVID-19.”
He is equally unhappy that the government is not doing enough in the fight against defilement of children and minors.
“Government has not done enough,” he contended, adding “sincerely government ought to be on top of their game. They need to collaborate with organisations working in children and gender-related areas.
“In the network I belong to, we are not being paid. We do what we are doing for passion. Even those who are being paid by the government are relaxed. We are doing the work which is right. So we need the support of the government.”
Okalawon took a swipe at the police for sometimes drawing the hand of the clock backwards.
“We have the vigilantes supporting us. But sometimes, when you go to the police station, they will ask for money. They will tell us they don’t have vehicles, but we have the vigilantes on ground, ready to move and apprehend the culprits and hand them over to the police authorities.
“We have gender officers and human rights officers at various police stations. These people should be trained and retrained. We often attend trainings with some of them. But it baffles me that when some of them see cases of defilement, the reverse becomes the case.
“Some of them compromise cases and make money out of them; they don’t care about the life of the survivor, the minor. If that is being done, it means square pegs are being put in round holes.
“I took someone to a police station; could you believe that the police collected N1,000 from the mother of the three-year at the counter, claiming she was supposed to pay N5,000; I had to tell them to receipt the money; I forced them to refund the money. Even the DPO and the CRO at the counter came to abuse me, insisting it was not my duty for what I did.
“Some of them compromise cases. We have good officers who are doing well anyway; if cases get to their stations, we can go home and sleep because we know that they are doing the needful,” he said.
He equally noted that part of the reasons pedophiling has persisted was because the perpetrators have low mentality.
“They cannot walk up to an adult. So, they believe in luring minors into their apartments with goodies or snacks and other stuff.
“Secondly, there has been a diabolical angle to it all. Imagine someone cutting the pubic hair of a victim. Somebody using a white handkerchief to clean up some mess after defiling a minor. What does the person want to achieve with that? For the love for money, they are asked to go and have canal knowledge of a minor?
“And now, we see a 17-year-old desiring to drive a N17 million car. It is crazy!” he said.
Testimonials from offenders
Asala said that some of the perpetrators in an encounter, sometimes gave bizarre reasons they did what they did. Here are some of the reasons:
“In Ojo, Lagos, we had a case; the man said he began defiling his daughter because the wife resisted him; so he had to start with the daughter.
“A man told us that he wanted to check if her daughter was still a virgin. So, he then assumed the role of a medical doctor. Another told us that he did what he did because his wife was late. You can see how wicked some people are?”
She admitted that some child molestation had been trending for a while, but regretted that “COVID-19 escalated it. When people were locked down, that alone exposed the evil inherent in them.
“It had been there, but people did not want to talk about it; for them, it was a taboo.
“Some women didn’t want to break their homes. They kept their cool; they didn’t want to be single mothers. They feared they might be booted out of their homes; so they kept quiet. The fear of survival made people to keep quiet and accept the unacceptable.”
What the police should do
Adebutu said, “if a case of anyone defiling a minor gets to us, we take appropriate action. We arrest the suspect and take them to court.
“We have a gender unit of the police that handles such cases. We don’t take such a case lightly.”
What to do to stop the evil
“We need a lot of sensitisation and personal counseling with those trained to do so.
“Sadly, this COVID-19 has caused a lot of havoc. I think that we need more of sensitisation on radio, television, billboards etc. We need to go into the markets to do a scaling up of sensitisation because some of our so-called parents believe they have to be in their shops till midnight, some of them believe when they leave their market place, that is when their best customers will come. So, they rather leave the kids at home. Some are left in the hands of predators to look after. By the time they come back something else has happened.”
“We need more of training and capacity building for the NGOs. Things are changing everyday. That done, I believe those who are genuinely fighting this cause will be on top of their game.
“We have a reporting template which we submit to ministries and agencies; they should analyse the reports. We even aggregate them by ages that are vulnerable. Government should key into that. Even organisations like UNICEF should key into that and use it for their intervention. Conduct a research on it that will give us the next level to go,” ” Okalawon said.
Also, Asala believes that “we need to teach parents how to do parenting.
“Mothers should have their eyes open in order to see what is going on around their daughters.
“Punishment should be proportional to offense committed; if there is a tougher punishment and no elongation of cases in the courts, there would be reduction in defilement and rape cases.
“Then, anyone caught defiling minors should be castrated, or sentenced to death or life imprisonment.”