While kidnapping and armed robbery
seem to have reduced in Edo State, Nigeria, suspected child defilers are on the
increase in the state. As a matter of fact, out of 60 suspected criminals paraded
recently by the state police commissioner, 16 were suspected child
defilers. There was the case of a 33-year-old man, Justice Olise, who claimed
because he was rejected by his female lovers, he resorted to sexually
assaulting small boys. At the last count, on January 1, 2014 when nemesis
caught up with Olise, he had allegedly sexually assaulted no less than five
boys aged between 11 and 14.
The self- confessed child defiler
told Sunday Vanguard that the young men usually come into his room to visit him
before he sexually abused them. Revealing how he started sleeping with the
boys, Olise narrated: “I started this kind of life when my girlfriend broke my
heart. After that, I entered into another relationship with a girl. I suffered
the same heart break. Because of that, I decided to stay on my own.
So I started masturbating since I no longer had a girl friend. I was doing that
before the children came and I started sleeping with them in my house. One of
them is 11, one is 12 and the other one is 14. They are the children of my neighbours.
I used them each time they come to greet me. I usually apply cream
on their lap before sleeping with them. But on the 1st of January, the
community people gathered in my house and started beating me. They took me to
Eyaen Police Station before they transferred me to the State CID. I am a
Christian but I don’t know what came over me, I have been doing it with the
children for a year and a half now”.
According to the Police Commissioner
in Edo State, “one Roland Osagie, 28
years old, who lives in Upper Mission Extension, was reported to have had
unlawful carnal knowledge of an 11
year-old girl. The grandmother, who discovered that the girl had pain in
her private part while bathing her, reported the case to the police.
Also, Ibrahim Akpobore, a 19-year-old boy, forcefully had canal
knowledge of an 11-year-old girl at
her mother’s farm in Igueleba, where she was sent by her mother to go with him
and show him where cassava tubers are to be uprooted. When they got to the
farm, he abandoned the job he was supposed do and had canal knowledge of the
little girl. Peter Omoregbe, a 42
year-old man, had canal knowledge of his nine year-old step daughter.
The girl’s mother discovered blood
stains on her daughter’s clothes while washing them and it was when she
threatened her that she confessed that her step father had been sleeping with
her and that he warned her not to tell anybody. In Irrua, Sunny David had unlawful sex with a 3-year-old girl. Her mother discovered that blood was coming out of
her vagina when the girl woke up and could not ease herself. She eventually
told the mother about the suspect and he was arrested. One Benjamin Amadin, a 60-year-old man, also defiled a 9-year-old girl here in Benin City, Edo
State.
It is shocking that the number of
those committing these atrocities keep increasing each passing day. These rapists
and pedophiles are mostly the people we know. I keep asking myself - When will parents learn? WHEN?
When are we going to learn that no one else can be trusted with our children? As much as we hope for the best and pray for
these children any time they are out on their own, parents also have to
implement extra measures to protect their children. Many factors have to
be considered before sending your children on an errand, boot camps or vacations.
When you send your children on holiday to their Uncle or Aunt’s home for a few
weeks, how well do you know the neighbours in that area? How about the kids
your child will be exposed to and have to play with? How positive will such
errand or vacation impact on your child’s life? It’s not enough to Pray and
Hope. I appeal to parents to become more vigilant because these perpetrators are all
around us in the form of FRIENDS, NEIGHBOURS AND ESPECIALLY FAMILY MEMBERS.
Edna Wey
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