What do you do when your Daddy rapes you? – Peju Akande

The world, right now, is anything but safe.

Thanks to CNN, BBC and Aljazeera plus of course other world news outlets, we hear of terrorists’ attacks virtually every hour, it’s been one developing story after another over the years; from Paris where more than 129 people died with over 200 wounded, to Yola where about 35 died with over 100 wounded; Kano where over 30 died with some 50 people wounded to Mali where some 170 people were held hostage and over a dozen died because they could not recite the Quran.

There seems to be a well-coordinated move to make every heart around the globe quake. And let’s not talk about the Russian passenger plane in which over 200 souls perished. Or the shootout at mosques in New Zealand where 50 people died. The question to ask is, where’s the next target?

That’s the real terror as no place is off limits; churches, mosques, market places, offices…except of course, home. Home is safe. Home is where you can be sure of a level of protection, security and comfort from blood thirsty hounds who wear religion like a garb.

But home is where hundreds of under aged Nigerian girls are being serially raped by their fathers, their uncles and their neighbors. Isn’t this real terror?

When we hear rape, our minds have been dulled by the several times we’ve had to deal with that piece of information. Isn’t it just sex? Ok, sex that was unsolicited and forced?

But when it happens to a 7-year-old, a 5-year-old, a six months old baby as we have read in the dailies in recent times, it is no longer sex. It is not unsolicited, it is a terrorist attack equal in magnitude to a bomb going off and blowing off a limb, it’s an eye popping off someone’s skull as he stands by the bus stop, it’s an arm being torn off a man who’s just walking by.

When a baby in diapers suddenly morphs into a sexy goddess that some 30-year-old neighbour can stretch limb to limb in the name of rape, then that is real terror. When a trusted uncle, swears an 8-year-old to silence and repeatedly rapes her, he’s inadvertently disemboweling just as Boko Haram’s bombs blasts many peoples’ bowels open on the streets after a suicide bomb attack. Look at the statistics; it’s almost running neck to neck with the ISIS’ terror attacks around the world.

“An online report showed that about “7 in 10 Adult Nigerians (67%) say that there is a high prevalence of child rape in the country while 3 in 10 (30%) personally know of a victim of child rape in their local communities.”

This kind of terror is not just on our doorsteps, it’s in our homes. It’s when daddy calls his 7-year-old daughter into the room to massage his AK47 (his penis), which has become an object of pain and anguish for this little girl.

“Don’t be afraid,” he tells her. “I’m your father, I will never hurt you”. And the daughter does Daddy’s bidding, trusting daddy not to hurt her, yet knowing something is completely off.

Then daddy lays her on her back and begins to massage her yet to-be developed privates and soon that becomes the routine for them.

What’s going on in her mind?

Fear, pain, bewilderment.

Why is Daddy doing this to me? He promised not to hurt me but he is.

She goes to the corner to cry. Her mind isn’t formed enough to grasp the import of what her body is going through. Soon she joins the rest of her mates on the field and momentarily, the image of daddy’s fingers deep in her is forgotten.

But not for long. Soon she sees him lurking in the shadows, it’s time for another session of pain. She’s reluctant to leave the field where her friends are shrieking with childish delight. Daddy beckons.

The fear and pain she feels will never leave her for the rest of her life. She will grow into an adult with a huge chip on her shoulder. Every boy, every man that commits to love her will get a bit of that chip Daddy has dug in her. They would wonder why she is such a bitter woman, why she has so many issues, what’s wrong with her sef? They will ask over and over again. They will never understand that for her, life is like wanting to scratch a limb that has been blown off. Even when she forgets, she will suffer from phantom pain all her life.

In truth, she doesn’t have answers because she doesn’t know there are issues, she was not schooled nor counselled to deal with the trauma of being repeatedly raped by her own father. Her pain will never heal and the waves of depression she experiences from time to time will never go away.

She’s another damaged goods on the loose.

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