Our society treats sexual abuses with kid gloves – Don

A university lecturer, Prof. Oladimeji Akadiri, at the weekend said that Nigerians and the government were still treating the issues of domestic violence and sexual abuses with kid gloves.

Akadiri, a professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University of Port Harcourt said this at a Book Launch “Catching Grace,” written by Mrs Ololade Okedare in Ikeja, Lagos.

The don, also a cleric, urged the Nigerian society to take responsibility of the menace and fight it to standstill anywhere it was found not sparing religious organisations.

“The way forward is that the society needs to take responsibility of this and start from advocacy. The advocacy is to make people understand the importance and the depth of criminality that domestic violence and sexual abuse portend to the victims and the society at large.

“The problem is that because it has not yet appeared as a public criminalised offence, compare to armed robberies and all of that, the society treats it with kid gloves. The society is even sometimes sympathetic to the offenders.

“If an armed robber is caught, everybody wants him/her killed or jailed, but if a rapist is caught, the society has a tender way of viewing the gravity of the offence,” he said.

According him, it was the victims who became forever deprived, not having her dignity and honour restored.

He added: “There is no compensation that can salvage the lost and the trauma the victims go through, perhaps for the rest of her life.

“Until the government begins to show how evil this is and show deliberate intention to punish any offender-whether they be found in the society or church or mosque or wherever, with commensurate punishment, then it will not get dawn on people that this is an offence.”

The university teacher, who noted that the menace remained a sin to God, said that though the Church had responsibilities to both the victims and the offenders, the latter should not be protected from the law.

He added that the society and the government also had responsibility to the victims of rapes and other abuses which include emotional, physical, health, psychological management of trauma, while calling for long term support for the victims, engaging them to be of help to others who might be victim of that.

Also speaking, Dr Amos Okedare, a Chief Consultant Family Physician, who was the Chairman of the occasion, described the book as “great one”, saying “the subject matter requires a lot of advocacy to stem the tides.”

Okedare, father in-law to the author and a missionary, advised the government to begin the advocacy at all levels of education and treats the menace of sexual abuse like HIV aids.

Also, the author, Okedare, who writes under the name, Lydia Emmanuel, said that her interactions with a lot of women who had been sexually abused, drew the inspiration for the 13-chapter and 180-page book.

Okedare added that the passion she had for women with hurting hearts and broken dreams birthed an outreach to commercial sex workers, from where the idea of the book came.

“My dream is to have a rehabilitation centre for this category of people. It is not enough to win the heart of these commercial sex workers, it is also very important to rehabilitate and reintegrate them into the society.

” Many of them have lost hope, many of them need a reason to live again and to hope again. What I plan with the proceeds from my book, is to be able to build someday a rehabilitation centre where these women can learn skills and get trained that will help them fulfill their dream in life,”Okedare said.

She said that the launch was a celebration of a dream come true and a divine assignment, saying that the book centred on a true life experience and meant to raise hope in many that were broken hearted.

The launch featured dance drama and poem renditions on domestic violence and abuse, sharing of real life experiences of sexual abuse and book reading by various readers.

The event also featured a panel discussion on the subject matter, where the culture of silence on the subject matter was condemned as well as speaking to wrong people.