By Chiedu Uche Okoye
Sir: From the dense forest of Sambisa, Maiduguri to the coastal marshy terrains of the Niger Delta, the trending news is rape. It is the everyday staple the news media feed us now.
Daily, our ears are inundated with sordid and sad tales of ladies, who were raped. Old women and minors are not spared the ordeal and humiliation of being raped.
So, what is the reason behind the prevalence of rape in our society? Some people posit that women invite rape to themselves by dressing suggestively and scantily.
That explains the campaign against indecent dressing being carried out on campuses across the country. However, in the olden times, it was said that women would do farm work and domestic chores either scantily dressed or in their birthday suits.
Yet, they were not ravaged by male sex predators. So, some men’s rationalization of their perpetration of the act of rape on the grounds that they cannot rein in their sexual urge upon seeing the erogenous zones of women holds no water.
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Is it the sexual attractiveness of female toddlers that drive male rapists to defile them? Why do rapists rape female octogenarians?
More so, incestuous relationships have become part of our narratives. There are men, who deflower their daughters and turn them to sex toys.
And there are women who lure their sons into bed for sex. So, the family, which is one of the agents of socialization, has failed abysmally in its onerous responsibility of instilling good morals into children of impressionable ages.
The effects of rape on rape victims are legion and devastating. Not a few female rape victims are traumatized for the rest of their lives after the experience.
More so, victims of rape are stigmatized, which makes them have low self-esteem. That’s why some women who suffer rape do not make it public, not to talk of them inviting the police to arrest the rapists.
When rape victims keep silent, rapists are emboldened to continue perpetrating the vile act of rape. And some of the rape victims are landed with unintended pregnancies while others are infected with the deadly HIV diseases and other STDs.
It behooves us to step up the war against rape in our country. In Nigeria, we have enough laws for addressing the issue of rape.
And I urge rape victims not to keep quiet for fear of being stigmatized. They should invite the police to effect the arrest of the culprits and press charges against them.
- Chiedu Uche Okoye, Uruowulu-Obosi, Anambra State.
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