By Tony Ogunlowo
Hardly a day goes by when there isn’t a news report about a minor
being sexually abused by a much older person. And the shocking thing is that
for every case reported dozens are not because the young victims are either too
scared of their attackers or embarrassed to talk to anyone. And it’s so bad now
that it’s rising to epidemic levels and soon Nigeria
will be overtaking Cambodia
and the Far East as the paedophile hotspot of
the world!
Currently
the law stipulates life imprisonment for rape of a minor under the new Sexual
Offences Bill but the law doesn’t deal with those who marry under-age girls to
circumvent the law. Whilst it is a horrendous crime to rape anyone it’s even
worse when the victim is a child and the perpetrator can get away with it by
either marrying their victim or shutting them up. Most paedophiles get away
with their crimes because they are much older and can intimidate or brainwash
their victims. And most of the time the perpetrators of these crimes are people
known to the victims as fathers, brothers, neighbours, uncles, in-laws etc.
Disturbingly,
families are prepared to put up a wall of silence and pretend as if nothing is
going wrong if there is a case of incest or paedophilia going on in their
household. They all keep quiet, hoping it blow over, in an attempt to preserve
their dignity often threatening the victim to remain quiet and not dealing with
the perpertrator.
Some
tribes even encourage paedophilia by marrying off their under-age daughters to
men old enough to be their grandfathers. And over the years no government
policy or law has been put in place to outlaw this practice until recently and
it’s still not enforced. Our society needs to shape up; it’s not okay for a
50-year old to be seen walking down the road with his new under-age wife. It
doesn’t matter if he’s the richest man in Nigeria
