DADDY, TOUCH THE BONE IN MY BREAST!

I listened attentively to the conversation between my husband and our eight year old daughter this morning before I concluded that my journey into child sexual assault prevention is not by accident, every step of humankind is predestined by God. She was showing her father her budding breast, an experience I had when I left secondary school. My left breast began to bud after I finished my secondary education before I was age fifteen. Therefore it was very strange to see my daughter's budding breast at the age of eight and quite infuriating that she was innocently showing her father.

Prevention of child sexual assault is the sole responsibility of any responsible adult in the community and every child must also learn about Sex education at a tender age since there are age appropriate sexual education trainings. This is to avoid life lonng calamity because the pain of sexual assault begins long after teh physical healing has taken place.

The first step I took in the journey is to ensure that everyone around us knows that we are the sexual abuse people and our chidlren are well educated about this problem mitigating against chidlren and women in our society. But I will want everyone to note here tht most of the time, teachers of sexual abuse forget to inform their chidlren before hean of sudden changes in their body system because we may believe that they have learnt about prevention but how woud they handle tehir body changes?

There was a new research early htis month that says Nigerian girls reach the age of puberty at eight, when I read thsi, I was agitated a bit and instantly, I created a quiet area and time to educate my eight year old girl about Menstruation immeidately forgetting that the breast might bud before menstruation. Gone are the days when we used to have our bath in the rain outside the backyard now things have changed, we should become our girls best friends, direct them in the right path while praying for them at the same time.

We must not be occupied by these mighty/mundane things of the world, eating and living, they may look insurmountable but the future of our girls lie in the way we lay their lives. To build safe and strong girls who would continue what we are building here, we must spare little time to, prune, weed, dress their flowers. A sexually assaulted girl is like eating and drinking unripe fruit while the children are silent. We must not forget that both boys and girls sexually assaulted and they must be protected.