Victims Not Saints
Every time there is a rape story on social media, it’s like an explosion, everyone is talking all at once and dropping their two cents but don’t be fooled, it’s just another gist to the majority, or like Twitter people will say “violence” and after 2 days of debating the topic they will round off by saying “it’s not a social media issue, go to the police” like the Nigerian police are not the biggest perpetrator of crimes in the country.
Rape is one of the leading human rights violations in Nigeria. According to amnesty international, in June 2020 the Nigerian police recorded 717 incidents of rape between January and May and also Nigerian Minister of women affairs, Pauline Tallen reported that at least 3,600 cases of rape were recorded during the 2020 lockdown, while the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) received 11,200 reported rape cases in 2020.
Barakat Bello was an 18year old student that was raped and stabbed to death in her bathroom and passed away on 1st June 2020 in Ibadan, Favour Okechuku, was an 11-year-old that was gang raped to death In Lagos, #justiceforuwa trended on twiTwitterter a 22 years old student of UNIBEN, Uwa Omozuwa was raped and killed inside a church and a recent #terdoobandega who is a serial abuser and rapist trended for weeks. One common denominator of these stories is that they trend on social media and everyone drops their opinion but there is no action from the authorities which further traumatizes the victims.
Nigeria thrives on a culture that silences victims, right from home where victims of rape will be asked to keep quiet after their assault and even police officers call incestual and marital rape “family problems” even if there’s clear evidence that the rape did happen, the victim is supposed to forgive and forget because if not, you’ll be ruining the abuser’s life. Whether in the church, mosques or even in Nollywood Nigerian society has been consistent in silencing the voices of victims and that has been reflected in our social media space.
Nigerian women have two options when they are sexually assaulted, keep quiet and see their abuser go Scot free or speak up and be subjected to vitriol on and off social media. No one believes you even after multitudes of evidence, you will be accused of false accusation especially if your partner is famous or God forbid a football star. It is easy to conclude that it’s a false accusation than to comprehend that their beloved celebrity committed an inhumane crime. Yes, false accusations exist but can never outweigh the number of women who have been sexually assaulted. Majorityrity of men don’t care about false rape accusations, it’s just a defense point when they decide to be mute on sexual assault cases.
A victim of sexual abuse in Nigeria will share so much evidence only to be dismissed by the masses or even slut-shamed then flood them with questions "Why did you go to his place after the first date? Why did you wear that? And even the “advice” they give victims always has a layer of victim blaming; “where do you see all these kinds of men” “You people should be careful of the people you date” It’s always easy to turn a blind eye to the crime only to focus on the victim and heap as much blame as possible on them.
The accusations are worse when the parties involved are gay, the majority of Nigerians believe that homosexuals deserve to be raped. Rape is seen as a punishment for them for not being heterosexual, the mocking is open-faced because even the law doesn’t recognize them. Several times in an attempt to “convert” them queer people are subjected to rape and sexual assault even in public. Every day queer people are assaulted but can’t speak out because of the vitriol that will be thrown their way.
There’s also this fallacy that victims have to be perfect, victims of abuse must not be capable of committing any crime and if that is otherwise, the victim is to blame for their abuse. The punishment for sexual crime is based on the character of the victim. It doesn’t matter whether the victim is a murderer nobody deserves to be raped, sexual assault is not a punishment for a crime that has been committed in the past and the same applies f the victim is also an abuser.
For a such religious country, we have a morality crisis, there is a lack of empathy for anything that doesn’t affect them, and it is easy to point fingers and judge people without a lack of introspection of how we will feel in that situation.
Sexual assault and rape victims deserve a respectful society, a society that will encourage victims to speak up and will reduce the trauma and stigma. They deserve a society that won’t tell them to forgive and forget when their body is violated and as Nigerians, we can do better, we need to look into ourselves and do our quota in creating a stigma-free society because nobody deserves to be raped whether they are a good person or not, they are victims, not saints.
References:
Amnesty International. (2021, November 23). Nigeria: Failure to tackle rape crisis emboldens perpetrators and silences survivors. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/11/nigeria-failure-to-tackle-rape-crisis-emboldens-perpetrators-and-silences-survivors/
Devatop Centre for Africa Development. (2021, June 30). Human Right Abuses Reported in Nigeria in June 2021. Retrieved from https://www.devatop.org/human-right-abuses-reported-in-nigeria-in-june-2021/
About the author:
Dauda Mistura is a final-year student at Lagos State University and the editor-in-chief of LASU Life. If she’s not reading a novel, she’s either sleeping or sharing unsolicited opinion on Twitter.
