MY ONLY CRIME WAS THAT I WAS VULNERABLE

I was homeless at the time, cleaning a brothel, cooking and washing for commercial sex workers. I wasn’t dressed in way that’s supposed to “attract” any man. The girls I worked for wore better clothes. I wore the same jean and T-shirt almost everyday. The best I did was brush the jeans once a month. My hair was shaved, no makeup, no earring, nothing. Yet, I was almost raped more than once. So the assumption that what a woman wears can provoke a man to rape her is false. I escaped rape miraculously, it still surprises me but I’m grateful.

The last attempt landed me in the hospital with a huge injury on my side (I still have the scar to show). It was about 10pm. I had finished cleaning and was heading to my corner to sleep. They showed up out of nowhere, three grown men. I was only 17. Immediately I figured what was about to happen, I started running. They chased me until I fell in front of the Army Cantonment in Obalende, Lagos. The barb wires caught my skin and I started to bleed. I was traumatized. Hated myself and thought I did something to call attention to myself. But I didn’t do anything wrong. I was just a girl, homeless at the time, living on the street. MY ONLY CRIME WAS THAT I WAS VULNERABLE. A nurse in the Military hospital in Ikoyi called me “the perfect rape target”. She told me I was lucky I wasn’t rape. That not so many girls on the street escape rape. I started to have horrible frightening nightmares, vivid replays of the traumatic experience. I couldn't handle it. Put that all together with what I went through living on the street, one day, almost 8 years after I left the street, I attempted suicide Never justify rape. Never!' We all need to speak out until we find #justiceforUwa #DontRapeUs #LeaveUsALONE