Sexual Violence

He comes when you least expect it, with the pretence of comfort, love, a shoulder to cry on and even  a source of happiness.When you think you are having fun, he slowly touches your face and strokes it. You push his hand away and you firmly tell him that you are not really into  it. That is when the sweet smiling face turns into rage and aggression. The fun you were having suddenly changes to utter and complete horror.

He comes  in many ways. Most times he is that boyfriend who promised you he would wait till you were ready to be intimate with him. The patience is long gone. He has been saying to you every time you are together how he would love to be inside you. To feel your warmth. To feel, or is it fill your womb...Wait till you get pregnant, but that is a story for another day.

He could be that man at the shops you saw growing up. He was always there. He saw you move from kindergaten to primary school. Now that your hips are filling your high school uniform, he has seen someone to satiate his sexual appetite. Your mum told you not to speak to strangers. This is no stranger to you, or even your family.

Worse still, this sexual predator could be your father, biological or not; you still call him dad. How someone who is supposed to protect you from the evils of society, is the one showing them to you, still remains a mystery, but is unfortunately not strange news.

Let us not go into categories of people such as uncles or cousins, because the pain is too much to bear.

Then, of course, there is that one who has been called by the devil to prey on unsuspecting individuals, be they out in the clubs, or even in the comfort of their own homes.

The other day, it was said that the way women dress is what provokes these beasts, I will not call them men, to rape women. I strongly disagree.

What, then will they say when a woman dressed in loose fitting clothes, or I dare say, a buibui is raped?

When we talk about defilement, do the tights and dress the baby is  clad in turn them on so much, they have to have them?

It pains me to think that the victims are the ones being blamed for an action they did not wish upon themselves.

Take, again, that young eleven year old boy, who is in hospital trying to figure out what wrong he has done to the world, because a man who knew his father well, who offered to give him a small job that he could do after school, robbed him of something his young mind could not fathom could be lost. That after an evening of apprenticeship one day, he offered him some juice in his house, only for the predator to pounce and partake of that forbidden fruit. What, pray tell, are you going to do to comfort him when you tell him that his rectum has been ruined permanently? What words can you utter to this boy to make him trust again? What will you do to make his father understand that there was no way he could have known that his friend was a paedophile? How do you assure this boy that once he is out of hospital, he will be back to normal?

You see, society is raising "hard core" people. Those who have so much pain in their hearts, the only way to ease it is to cause others to hurt in the same way, if not worse than they.

I may not have the answers to these questions. But one thing rings true. The victims need all the love. I wrote this blog with a bias to them. I do not want to look at psychological problems the perpetrators may have. I want to focus on the ones these predators have caused to these ones. Love those who have been sexually abused. That way, they heal easier and faster..