Chioma Okezie-Okeh
Clutching her six-month-old baby, the young woman battled in vain to control her tears. One could sense her unease and the raging emotion going on within her which she supremely controlled with a bland face. But one question triggered her hysteria.
Who is the father of your child?
As soon as she opened her mouth, the dam of tears broke. “I do not know who the father of my child is, because I was raped several times by my employer and his sons,” she blurted.
What came out of her mouth was a heartbreaking story of an 18-year-old domestic servant trapped in a sexual abuse purgatory where she was violated severally by her employee and his two sons until a Good Samaritan reported to the police and she was rescued from the clutches of her abusers, but she came out of the hellhole pregnant.
“They all denied me but I know that my child belongs to one of them,” she cried. “It is a lie for anyone to say that the house mechanic was the one who got me pregnant.”
Bimbola (that is not real her name) was not alone in her misery. She was one of several women who shared their stories at an occasion organised by Naked Truth, a non-governmental organisation. Several women, whose identities are protected, recounted harrowing tales of maltreatment, subjugation and sexual abuse in the hands of male predators in homes where they lived or were employed a few years ago.
Saturday Sun captured the heart-wrenching chronicles of the rape that went on behind closed doors as the affected women opened up on how they were violated and how the trauma shaped them for the rest of their lives.
Raped by father and sons
A palpable silence prevailed in the hall as Bimbola narrated her story. She was 15 at the time her mother, a farmer in Ogun State, sent her to Lagos to serve a woman who owned a restaurant.
“The agreement was that she would send me to school while I work in her restaurant after school,” she recalled. “But when I got to her house, she told me that I would start school after serving her for two years. That was not part of the agreement, but what will I do?
The room the maidservant was assigned was also where her employer’s sons aged 14, 16 and 18 years old and 12-year-old daughter slept at night.
The older boys soon started molesting her.
“It was Segun, the 16-year-old that started it a few months after I arrived in their house. He raped me and when I told their mother, she was furious and told me to be grateful that her son touched me. When summoned, Segun denied it.”
That was the beginning of the nightmare. “On realizing that their mother did not caution his brother, Emmanuel, the 18-year-old also did the same thing and because he was far older, he kept giving me one concoction or the other to prevent me from getting pregnant.”
Their father, who was jobless and was always around in the house, also joined in the abuse of the young housemaid.
Her boyfriend who was privy to her ordeal took the story to the police and it culminated in the arrests of her abusers. She was, however, forced to settle the case out of court.
“I never knew that I was pregnant then. This baby was a product of all the abuse and I am 100 per cent sure that they are the father of my children,” she lamented.
Abused by her employee and his brother
Adaku was 12 years old when her parents were overwhelmed by the adverse economic situation in the country and had to take a drastic measure of survival.
She said: “I was sent to Lagos to work as a servant for a couple without a child. My work was to clean the house, wash clothes and do other chores as directed by the madam. Everything was okay until she later became pregnant. That was when her husband started touching me. He started by squeezing my breasts and asked me to touch his manhood. When I refused, he threatened to tell his wife.”
Her refusal to comply with his randy wish resulted in serious beating and the falsehood that she stole his money.
“His wife believed him and she joined him in beating me. That night, I was starved and the next day, the beating continued. My madam called me a thief and contacted the woman who brought me to her. They told me that the money my parents collected was a huge sum of money for which I’d have to work for a long time in return before I could be free to go back to the village. I felt so bad and cried all night. I never knew it was a lie. As I later found out, they’d bargained with my parent to send me to school in lieu of payment.”
Helpless, the 12-year-old continued her job despite the obvious red flag.
“Two days later, her husband came into my room and this time around, succeeded in raping me,” she recounted. “I was terrified. I kept quiet because I knew that no one would believe me and I dared not talk for fear that he would accuse me of theft.”
For the next three years that she lived in the family, the abuse continued. It got worse when the man’s younger brother came to live with the family and he also joined his brother in raping her.
“He would also visit my room at night, drug me and have his way. Even when he got to know that his elder brother was having carnal knowledge of me, he continued and was threatening to expose us if his brother dares to stop him.”
Eventually, a neighbour whom she confided in after her fourth abortion reported the abuse at Bariga Police Station.
“My Madam’s husband was arrested but when I got to the police station to write my statement, the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) called me a prostitute and a thief. He threatened to send me to jail if I did not drop my charges again my employer. I was just 15 years old. I was frightened. Our neighbour who reported the matter could not do anything about it.”
Accused of being a homewrecker, she was thrown out and she found herself on the street at 15.
“It was easy for me to become a prostitute because I was used to been forced to have sex. The only good thing is that I was paid for my services this time around,” she said.
Adaku had since been rehabilitated. She had gone back to study and is presently living a respectable life as an urban wife with three kids and a teacher in one of the private schools in Lagos.
Defiled at home, abused by a policeman and a pastor
Nneka was a mere 14-year-old when she left her home in Ebonyi State for Enugu to serve in the household of a popular businessman known as Chairman. Her employer’s wife was a banker at Union Bank who had to leave home very early and returned late in the evening, thereby saddling their teenage servant with the onerous duty to feed, bathe and take the family’s five children to school.
It was only a matter of time before the man started preying on the youngster. To worsen the situation, his brother who visited also joined him in this debauchery, she alleged.
“I was scared to speak out because my madam had already threatened me that she would kill me if I messed around while in her house,” she recounted. “I was 14 at the time. Although I knew what they were doing, I kept quiet because I was determined to study and be a better person.”
But one fateful morning, her life skidded to a halt when she woke up vomiting and it was obvious she was pregnant.
“My madam got to know and I told her my story. She beat me up so much I lost the pregnancy.”
Neighbours who were conversant with what happened reported to the police at Abapanike, but instead of succour, the action brought more trouble for the teenager.
“At the police station, the family accused me of defiling their son who was 12 years old. They turned the case against me and I became a suspect instead of the victim.”
Locked up at the police station, she had to sleep with the IPO to regain her freedom, she alleged. Thereafter, she decided to seek sanctuary in the church where the pastor asked her to stay around pending when they could get her accommodation. It was soon clear to her that she had “jumped from frying pan into the fire” as the pastor too started showing interest in her.
“I was shocked, and when he realized my disappointment, he assured me that he would marry me,” she narrated. “It was later that I discovered that he was married with children. I was branded a prostitute sent from hell to destroy the ministry of the pastor.”
Thrown out of the church, she had taken to prostitution at the age of 18.
She had grown to become a successful businesswoman over the years and had amended her way but she was far from being mended from the trauma of her teenage years which left her in a state of psychological disrepair: “I find it difficult to trust any man. I guess that is why I am still single at 45,” she said.
Tricked and abused by her father
The most poignant reminiscence came from a young woman whose first name is Bunmi. Hers was a complicated story of incest, of a father tricking his daughter to become his sexual partner.
Bunmi started her story with the narration of the tragedy that befell her family: “I lost my mum when I was 14 years. I had four siblings. After our mother’s burial, my father refused the offer of help from relatives insisting that he would take care of us by himself. At 14, I knew practically how to do everything at home, from house chores to going to market and taking care of my younger ones. I could cook food for my father and siblings. I was well trained by my mother. I became the mother of the house. And I loved my father so much that I could not tolerate any woman attempting to take the place of my mother. My father assured us that he was not going to marry another woman.”
She continued: “My father started calling me his wife. He said I was a carbon copy of my mother and I reminded him of her a lot. When I was 15 years old, my father walked into the bathroom by mistake while I was bathing. I was not moved to cover my body because he is my father. He stood there for some seconds and then left after saying sorry. That night, he gave me a cup of orange drink after my siblings had gone to bed. After taking it, I felt dizzy. When I woke up later, I found myself lying in my father’s arm. I screamed and he knelt down and started crying. He begged me not to disgrace him, that we would be taken away from him. He said since my mother died, he had not slept with any woman and when he saw me in the bedroom, he assumed that I was my mother. I cried that night. I felt pity and hate for my father at the same time. He brainwashed me into believing that I am my mother. This was how he kept sleeping with me for four years until the day my younger sister caught us.”
In order to avoid scandal, the family kept the incest secret.
“We were taken away from him, and I lived with my maternal aunt till I got admission into the university,” she said.
Neither time nor marriage could heal her of the damage to her psyche.
“I would not allow my husband to carry our daughter. I kept thinking that one day he could do the same. It caused a lot of trouble between us,” she recalled.
Her husband eventually reported her to a counsellor and the story of the abuse came out culminating in her going through therapy.
There were others who narrowly escape from would-be rapist family members and relatives. One of them was Mrs Emmanuel who revealed that “my cousin almost had sex with me” when she was a first-year student at Enugu State University.
Her narration offered a new perspective on the danger faced by young girls who lived in close proximity with randy relatives.
Her story: “My parents could not afford to pay for accommodation on campus, so I had to live in the household of an uncle who worked in a bank. After some weeks, his younger brother came to live with us. The family lived in a three-bedroom apartment. I had a room to myself and my cousin had a room. I assumed his closeness to me was because we were first cousins. A few days after he joined us, he came to my room and suggested that we should be sleeping in the same room, that it was not necessary for him to be spoiling that room that can be reserved for special guests.
“The first night, I woke up with a feeling that someone was touching my breasts. But I saw him fast asleep. I assumed that I had dreamt. But one day, I woke up and found him sucking my breasts. I shouted, at first, he pleaded then he started threatening to beat me if I screamed again. I ran out of the room. His elder brother was so furious he threw him out of the house that night.”
But the story turned against her in the morning.
“He lied that I was the one who pleaded with him to sleep in my room and that he never touched me. His mother believed him, convinced my uncle that this was the truth and I was asked to leave the house.”
Rape on the increase
The campaign against domestic servants abuse is being spearheaded by Elvira Salleras, founder, Literacy Integration and Formal Education Foundation (LIFE), a child-focused non-governmental organization with interest in teenage domestic servants. According to her, the organisation scouts for victims of rape and other forms of sexual abuses. Victims are offered counselling and formal reports are made on their behalf to the Domestic Violence Unit of the Ministry of Youth and Social Development and the Police. The NGO also assists victims with free legal representation on the civil matter and support through mentoring.
Saturday Sun spoke with Gloria Egbuji, human rights activist and executive director of Crime Victims Foundation of Nigeria (CRIVIFON). Egbuji affirmed that rape is on the increase, especially on domestic servants.
“From our record, it’s alarming and no one is exempted,” she avowed. “We have several cases of men taking advantage of their female domestic servants and these issues are brought to the limelight by a third party who must have noticed.”
She lamented what she regarded as challenges to prosecution, namely victim’s silence due to fear of stigmatization and family’s insistence on dropping the case. “A lot of women are bearing the psychological trauma of rape, but we keep admonishing them to speak up rather than die in silence,” she stated.
The amended law on rape has also helped in fighting these cases, she confirmed.
Lagos State Police Command spokesman, DSP Elkana Bala when contacted stated that the Command has an efficient Gender Unit that will stop at nothing to gather evidence that will enable them to prosecute anyone caught in the act.
“When victims keep quiet, the abuse continues,” he noted.
The police spokesman encouraged victims to report their maltreatment. “We have some cases in court and the victims are protected from any form of threat from the accused,” he said.