Breaking the Silence in Family Rape

Family rape is one of the predominant violation suffered by most young girls but nothing seems to be done about this. Reason being either the mother of the house those not want her husband to be humiliated, or that the woman doesn't want the cordial relationship that existed between her and her husband to die down or the violated doesn't report the case due to flatteries from the violator.

I came across a case of family rape that concerned a little girl of 12 years. This little girl stayed with her step father since she was 8years old. Each time her mum went out of the house, this man will deep his fingers into her vaginal and always told her never to tell her mum. This became a normal activity of this man when ever the wife was away.

When this girl was 11years old, his first attempt to rape the little girl failed because just at the time he had removed her pant, the other children came into the house. When her mum came back she reported the case to her but her mum could not believe her since this man always gave negative complaints of dating against the innocent girl.

On that faithful night when her mum slept out of house, while the other children were deep asleep, this man called the little girl to his room pretending that he wanted to give her dresses to be washed the next day. When she entered the room, the man locked the door and forceful made her lie on the bed. He removed her pant and when she struggled screening, the rapist used a blanket to cover her mouth so that she could not shout. When he had finished with the act, he gave the little girl 10000Frs CFA begging her not to tell anybody about what had happen. The girl collected the money but could not hide this from her mum. Unfortunately for her when she reported the case to her mum, she shouted at her, calling her all sort of names saying she wants to put her marriage asunder. This little girl became confused and had no one to share her case with.

It happened that I had a talk on sex education in her school and at the end of the talk, this little girl walked up to me at the end of the talk, narrated the story to me. I called her mum on phone to have a dialogue with her, from her views, she did not take the little girl serious because her so called husband has told her all sort of negative things about this little girl. But i made the woman to understand that the little girl would have been bad no doubt but its clear that this man said all this for his own selfish interest. After our discussion the woman and her daughter both agreed that the little girl should be sent to her grand mum to continue school to avoid further violation. But my attempt to approach the man failed because his wife would not let me talk to her husband about it because she feared being throw out of marriage because she solely depends on this man financially.

Failure women, let's be empowered because being empowered means that you have automatically put an end to dome aspects of dictatorship of men over you. Being empowered means your voice will be heard because one of the key weapons men used against us women is our vulnerability. Please let's remove this Vail of vulnerability through empowerment.

Also to all mothers, always give a listening ear to your children, nomatter how boring they can be because after all the boredom some sense must definitely be made from it. Always make them know their opinion counts.

Still to women, please do not save a marriage and spoil your precious children. Strike on the truth and strike the iron when it is hot.

How to Get Involved

Encourage organisation to organise workshops and more opportunities for talks on sexuality with youths most especially girls

Also general gender sensitization on sexual behavior is a call for consent.