YALI RLC 2019 Masterclass on “Sexual Violence Against Women, Men and Children: Handling and Reporting Cases of Abuse”.
The masterclass discussion held on the Alumni Telegram group platform started at exactly 7:36 pm with the moderator Ayo Ayeni explaining the importance of the topic stating that people all around the world suffer violence in different ways irrespective of age and gender and with this discussion she hopes everyone better get enlightened after the class so as to be able to better deal with these issues and hopefully make the world a better place.
Mrs. Olivia Onyemaobi, a sexual and reproductive health advocate, founder of Pad-Up Creations, a social company in Nigeria that produces anti-microbial reusable sanitary pads as sustainable solution for rural and low-income girls/women in Africa, 2018 British council business grant awardee, 2018 Mandela Washington fellow, 2018 Most impactful entrepreneur of 2018 from Tony Elumelu entrepreneurship foundation, 2018 global pitch crowd vote winner and many others is committed to seeing that every girl/woman in Africa have good knowledge and right over their sexual life irrespective of their economic class or location.
When asked about her experience on how common is the phenomenon of Sexual Violence Against Women, Men, and Children and if abuse against one group worse than the other, She said she started a campaign against sexual abuse in 2015 because she personally suffered sexual abuse for 9 years during her childhood, so she took the challenge to help rehabilitate sexually abused people so as to help them overcome the trauma and sexual abuse against female children are more common.
Olivia when talking about the her experience between when she was a child and now and how the awareness and coming out about abuse has improved said it is great as many people have become more conscious now than before. She explained that many people think sexual abuse occurs when there is only penetration of sexual organs, meanwhile sexual abuse is unwanted sexual activity, with perpetrators using force, making threats or taking advantage of victims not able to give consent
More so, sexual abuse could take any of these forms; Fondling of genitals, intercourse, oral sex, exposure to a sexual act (having sex in front of someone), having someone touch another person’s genitals, using someone in pornography, and/or exposure to sexual pictures or videos to an unwanted person.
Sani Awilo, another key speaker at the masterclass in addressing the questions raised said it is more comprehensive to use Sexual harassment if you really mean any form of intimidating or undue advantage through chats, SMS, voice calls to place man or woman in the state he or she may feel insulted.
She continued by saying there are so many sexually abused people in which 87% of them have the tendency to abuse others.
She said “I have a client whose daughter is 13 and they still sleep in the same room with the girl, even when they are having sexual intercourse. They do this believing that the girl is asleep at night. One day they wanted to start the night business, and the husband waved his hands on the daughters face, the girl slapped the father saying “leave me alone and do that thing you do every night". When they brought the girl for rehabilitation, we discovered that she has been having sexual intercourse with a neighbor from the age of 10, she learned it from her parents”.
Sani added that sexual abused persons often experience frequent injuries, learning problems, fear or shyness, bad dreams, behavior problems, depression, and fear of certain adults or places.
The effects don’t end with the abuse. When abused or neglected children grow up, they are more likely to abuse their own families, use violence to solve their problems, have trouble learning, have emotional difficulties, attempt suicide, and use alcohol or other drugs.
In her line of work and how she had handled cases of abuse as welk as how to encourage more people to come out of the shadows to expose perpetrators, Sani affrimed that sometimes, people are afraid to report abuse because they don’t want to break up a family, feel ashamed, and feels that nobody will believe them or that they will not get justice.
Sometimes, people are afraid to get involved in someone else’s problem. Whatever you feel, you are right! But when you report abuse you could be saving a life.
Some people quickly rush to report sexual abuse on another person to the police without working towards rehabilitating the abused. She suffered the hurt of that experience even when she was married. Sex wasn’t fun in marriage. You will always feel the hurt except therapy is administered on you (rehabilitation).
She has had a case of a woman reporting that her husband always finger her before sexual intercourse and she feels “Why will he be behaving like children”. I asked her if she was abused when she was a kid, and she said “YES, but how did you know”. The trauma of sexual abuse stays with people sometimes till they are old if they are not rehabilitated.
As citizens what can we do when we suspect or know of cases of sexual abuse whether it’s against men, women or children?
One of the first things to do when abuse is suspected:
Firstly; Visit the hospital and get checked especially when it happens to a child. When Doctors are involved, there is always that 3rd party certification that makes it look serious.
In 2015, Sani had a case of a 3-year-old girl who was sexually abused by a vulcanizer beside her mother’s shop, the man actually had sexual intercourse with her and pushed the clitoris and all the walls of the vagina inside. They rushed her to the hospital, involved FIDA, and invited the police to the hospital. So by the police seeing the patient in the hospital, they were able to understand that the case was serious.
The parents took care of the baby in the hospital while we pushed the case. Yes, they won! And the man is in prison now. Again, her daughter at 2 had attempted sexual abuse by one of her female domestic staff. Immediately, they rushed her to the hospital and her doctor confirm someone attempted to tamper with the anatomy of her and the lady refused to speak. In order to protect her daughter, she relieved her of her job since she wasn’t successful and there was no tangible evidence. But a 2-year-old girl reporting about that was not in vain.
Secondly; Involve an NGO or an organization like FIDA can also help. Before rushing to the police, you may wish to involve an NGO that handles sexual abuse. Most Nigeria police are not knowledgeable enough to understand the trauma of a sexually abused person or their relation face. They may not take you seriously or they may take a bribe from you, but when they know that the case is beyond you and the reporter, then they may be limited.
Thirdly; Involve a Government agency. In some states, there are government agencies that handle cases of sexual abuse. For instance in Niger state, she knows they have Child right agency, find out which agency is working on this, you may be helping someone. Sexual abuse cases are usually between the government and the perpetrators.
Otherwise, Visit the police. Anyhow, do your best to visit the police. It is important that this issue gets mentioned in the police, even if the perpetrator doesn’t get prosecuted at the first report, it could serve as evidence for any recurrence.
Administering Therapy:
Sexual abuse trauma lasts for years and the abused can only have the confidence to tell you everything if:
1.You must not be judgmental
2.Believe them, but ask questions to find out more. This will help you know how to advise
3. You must show concern and a sense of protection. Her daughter knows she will fight for her
4. See the experience from the positive. Don’t make an abused person hear that it is his end. No. Give them instances of people who experienced that and still moved on.
5.You get them to talk. The more they talk to you about it, the less pain they feel in days
6. Always check on them. Teenagers and women have higher tendencies to commit suicide from that experience.
These are the step she uses, it doesn't matter who was abused, once they talk about it to a 3rd party, the pressure reduces. It took her 25years to tell someone hers and the person was her husband.
So she started using an hour break from her bank job to help others, but later realized that her job is not a part-time job because girls were severally abused for lack of sanitary pads, so she quieted her banking job to start a sanitary pad company for Children between the ages of 2-13 years, were they are taught all the different forms of sexual abuse, that helps them know when someone is trying to take advantage of them and they are also taught that they some part of their body are private and shouldn’t be played with, even by their friends. If someone tries to do that;
1. You say “stop, I don’t like it!”(They ask, when you do number 1, what do you do next?)
2. You must run away, (They ask when you run away)
3. You must tell your mum and your dad, (They ask if you tell them and they do not do anything)
4. If someone is doing it to you and the person is at home, you tell your school teachers (for cases where parents abuse the children)
5. You tell them again and again and again until they say something (They ask, AND? )
6. You must not do it to somebody else.
There are several cases where parents abuse their children or even relations to children in their homes, they encourage these children to speak out. They have handled several of these cases and have had a case that the father gives the daughter 200 Naira to have sexual intercourse with the girl. So if you are working on this or intending to, you must be ready to face it. There are cases that the perpetrator will threaten to kill you. She even had a case where a girl 12 years confided in my team after our visit to their school, when she reached the mother for a follow-up, the girl denied telling us that the uncle has been having sexual intercourse with her since she was 9. So when you are getting them to talk, they should describe the location, call names of the people in their household, describe how their house is, the car their father drives, etc. So when the woman sent us out of her house that we are talking rubbish and want to scatter her family, they started telling stories about the things the girl told them, how many rooms are in their house, when she leaves the house, the last time she traveled, etc, her mother then believed them. This particular girl was always calling them on the phone to please come to their house to tell her mother, but she denied when they reached their house because she was afraid of her mother. Akindele:
After extensively speaking about abuse in kids, Sani shed more light on sexual abuse in men and women, advice adults involved in sexual abuse who are afraid to speak up due to not wanting to lose their jobs or benefactor or something is keeping them their and individuals who know about it and want to help.
She states that all the forms of abuse apply to adults, adults have 65% ability to seek help than kids. While efforts to prosecute sex offenders in Nigeria remain unpromising, psychological interventions for survivors (private therapy) appears effective, even though we don’t trust the police, we must push the report & seek rehabilitation for the victim.
Adults who are sexually abused and refused to speak up has chosen that part, you can only advise that person, you cannot report sexual abuse on the person's behalf, but if the person is a teenager you will have to 1st convince him or her on the need to be saved, get the persons consent so they don’t end up denying it, she has treated over 217 cases of sexual abuse and relations of victim will even frustrate you from getting justice.
Furthermore, the masterclass session saw Aisha Bubah, the YALI RLC President asked about the enforcement of laws against sexual abuse in Nigeria? She also wanted to know if cases of male sexual abuse are reported frequently as She’s aware about the high rate.
Olivia responded by saying that the law is not implemented, the law enforcement agencies will frustrate you. The crime of sexual abuse cases is between the government and the abuser, less than 10% of the offenders are prosecuted, especially in Northen Nigeria. Males also suffer abuse, 1 in every 6 boys, 2 in every 6 girls.
Why the female cases are popular is because it is more frequent and there are usually injuries, especially around the vagina
The above is the statistics the government gave in Nigeria, but she knows it is worse than that. She went to a private school and after their section with 200 JSS2 students, 169 of the girls have had sexual intercourse more than once and none of them was up to 15 years old and one bad thing about it is that it can become an addiction for them, they have sexual partners in school
Due to the fact that they was no more time she rounded by saying It is our duty to heal these wounds, knowing that the abused have no blame, no matter what condition. Yes! she means no matter the condition. Any time someone is tensed, pressured, sad, over happy etc, the endocrine system releases adrenalin which shuts down the thinking part of the brain, at that time the person may not reason well, but afterward you may be saying, _“if it was now that this man tried to rape me, I would have used this to defend myself, I forgot this answer when I was in the exam hall, but I knew it, etc”._
The session ended by Ayo saying that the society which is we live in we all have a great role to play in these issues, let us be cautious and not enable abusers, let us break the culture of shaming victims and that of silence. There are so many things we aid without knowing e.g laughing at or making jokes of these issues, let us be supportive and make anonymous reports and he knows of DSVRT and Mirabel center here in Lagos, if you know of any organization where reports can be made here in Lagos and other parts of the country , please do well and let us all know.
LOOKING FORWARD TO ANOTHER AMAZING, ENHANCING AND EDUCATIVE SESSION.
