LESSONS FROM A SIBLING ABUSER, A CULTURAL RAPIST AND A PAEDOPHILIC TEACHER.

Good evening people. In the past week, there have been three separate but similar incidents. The first major incident was the story of a fifteen year old boy who raped his five year old brother and four year old sister. The second was that of a twenty year old man who raped a ten year old boy and claimed that it was cultural in his society to rape boys. The third was that of a thirty-three year old female teacher who first sent solo sex videos to her fifteen year old student and finally lured him into having sex with her until she was caught.

I will like to focus majorly on the first story, while making references to the second and third. The news about the sibling rape became public when the four year old girl told her mom and the police about her brother’s ‘disgusting and yucky acts’. So far, many media houses have been focusing mainly on the boy being a ‘below-average student’ who drank too much alcohol and took drugs. His mom has also been reported as saying that ‘the lives of the abused siblings will never be the same again’, even as the boy was sentenced to almost five years imprisonment.

I find it quite curious though that more serious issues are not being raised about the matter. Much of the focus is on the boy, but I daresay that his parents [or mother, as no mention is made of a father in the news] deserve to be questioned even more than the boy. I would like to ask his mother: “Where were you when your underage teenage son started taking alcohol and drugs?” By the standard of most countries the boy is not yet an adult, yet he was abusing alcohol and drugs and his mother was not aware? Hmm…..

The case of the abused schoolboy also poses the same question. An underage teenage boy receiving solo sex videos from his teacher. Mommy [or parents] not aware until one of the videos went viral and then the truth was brought to light.

The father of the abused ten year old boy mentioned above showed some vigilance at least. The twenty year old rapist crept into the boy’s room while the father was in the kitchen, closed the door and began to rape the boy. The father heard sounds in his son’s room and opened the door, and there was his son underneath a man he once trusted. The rest is history.

It is interesting to note that in all these stories, the abusers were known to their victims and were trusted by them all, at least to an extent. Definitely, in the case of the abusive brother, he was trusted by his siblings just as many people out there trust members of their families. The boy betrayed the trust of his siblings but I daresay that he was first betrayed by parents who should have been there for him. Parents who should have watched over him spirit, soul and body; who should have been more actively involved in the goings-on in his life. It was revealed that he abused his siblings when he was between the ages of thirteen and fourteen. Let these incidents serve as a warning to parents to be on their guard particularly with regards to their children.

Three lessons that can be learned from the incidents are:

Lesson number one: Be close to your children. Some parents these days find it difficult to be close to their children due to various reasons such as the pursuit of money, a rift between husband and wife, personality differences between a parent and a child, etc. It is however important to note that the success or failure of a child depends to a large extent on parental involvement in the early years. The closer a child is to his/her parents, the less likely they are to fall prey to drug/alcohol abuse.

Lesson number two: Be internet savvy and check your children’s phones regularly. Children are very smart [sometimes even smarter than their parents], especially in issues pertaining to technology. I advise parents to be at the top of their game. If your children have access to the internet, try to learn everything you can about their phones and their internet activities. For the sake of your children, don’t be a social media dinosaur. Understand the various social media apps. This will help you know exactly what your child is talking about when he or she is referring to the various social apps and the best way to go about advising them on the use of social media.

Lesson number three: Do not be too trusting, and teach your children not to be so too. As so many sex educators have taught over the years, please teach your children about their body parts from the time they are old enough to understand what you are saying, and each day be sure to discuss with them how their day went. Ask about friends, schools, etc. If you have people staying with you, question your children daily about the happenings in the house and make sure they know that it is an offence for people to touch their body parts, except perhaps when they are being bathed by authorized personnel. Please put all these stringent measures in place. Prevention is better than cure.

Finally, even with all these measures, I will like to conclude by saying that prayer is the key. In as much as many parents have good intentions for their children, the truth is that things don’t always turn out the way we hope them to. Ask the Heavenly Father to protect you and your children from perverse family relations and sadistic human beings who masquerade as neighbours, friends and enemies alike.