By Priscilla Osaje
ABUJA – A legal practitioner and other concern individuals have called on Nigerians to rally supports for rape victims in ensuring rapid psychological recovery, rather than hurting them more with abuses.
Mr Nnamani Ogbonna, a legal practitioner, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Abuja that the attitude of discriminating against rape victims should be a thing of the past.
Ogbonna said that the society should be responsible for the healing process of the victims.
According to him, the public should desist from the stigmatisation of rape victims.
“It is very important that victims of rape are helped to recover from the trauma.
“They should not be discriminated against and the public should desist from stigmatising rape victims,’’ he said.
According to him, the public should know that it can happen to anyone.
He said that victims should be supported and helped to overcome the psychological trauma.
“There should be a psychology section in every government hospital to counsel rape victims.
“The security agent must ensure that proper investigation is conducted while handling such sensitive matters and necessary prosecution should be fairly delivered,’’ Ogbonna said.
Mr Kindness James, a businessman, told NAN that cases of rape had become rampant in the society because of decay in moral rectitude.
“The western world has silenced African cultures, which is ingrained with the fear of God through the use of the mobile phone.
“The internet has exposed us to nudity, incest and all sorts of societal ills, leaving adolescents to raw contents capable of harming their young minds.
“Parents do not fully have control over their children, especially their male children,’’ he said.
Another interviewee, Mrs Nkem Olanrewaju, a civil servant, said that parents and care-givers have failed in their duties to care and support victims of rape.
Olarewaju said they would rather blame the innocent victims for allowing themselves to be sexually abused.
“There are instances where parents have beat up their children for being raped; they further shut them up, blaming them for the way they dressed or where they were at the time of the incidence.
“That kind of society will only raise timid young victims who subconsciously keep secrets and bad experiences to themselves, for fear of harsh consequences of a culture strip society,’’ she said.
Olanrewaju urged parents to stop casting blame on rape victims.
Rather, he said, they should instil principles of morality in their children for a better society. (NAN)
