How do you know your girl child has not been raped.

 

Today is the International day of the girl child, and for the benefit of lots of young girls and our unborn girls, I will be narrating a rape story of an 8 year old girl.

At the end, you will choose for yourself who is to be blamed.

On Friday, a mother and her husband brought their 8 years old daughter to be examined by the doctor.

This girl was raped a week before, by a guy she refused to tell anyone. According to her mother, she discovered this when at first, she had refused to sleep with her pants on, and later during the day, her walking step changed.

When asked what was wrong with her, she said  her pants had wounded her. Her mother then asked her to show her the wound, but to her surprise, the wound was way too bad.

So she tried finding out what was wrong with her daughter, but the girl still refused to say. She had to beat her so bad that she put pepper in the already wounded vagina.

When her father returned a week later, he suggested they bring her to the hospital. In the hospital, after so much persuasion, the little girl finally said when and where she was raped, but then the " who" was and is still not known.

According to her, she was raped by a man she does not know around 6pm in the market when she went to get something for her mother.

Now here is the question " who is to be blamed"?

The little girl who went to answer a stranger by that time of the day and refused to tell the truth when asked at first?

The mother who sent her little daughter out by that time of the day and still put pepper in the girl's already blistering vagina when she refused to talk?

The father who couldn't provide adequate care for his family, wasn't around at the time of this incident, and still isn't taking it lightly with the girl?

Dangers of rape

While you still ponder on that, let's talk about the dangers of leaving a girl child at the mercy of these monsters who we call rapists.

• The post trauma effect stays longer than you think. These girls go into depression, and may never remain the same.

• They are at risk of contacting sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV/AIDS.

• Other diseases such as hepatitis B and C can be transmitted to them.

• They may get pregnant.

There are lots of complications associated with rape. So as much as you can, protect your daughters from rape.

How can you protect your daughter from rape?

The importance of protecting your girl child from rape and other social vices cannot be over emphasized. And ways a girl can be fully protected cannot be mentioned in a single article.So I'm going to mention a few of them.

• Try to build a relationship with your daughter. Create a good platform for communication.

• Educate your daughters on sexual matters. Do not shy away from it. If you don't teach them, the society will. And that may be in a negative way.

• Be security conscious. Don't send them to insecure places. Do not also send them out at late hours.

• Do not leave them at the mercies of males except their father or immediate brother. Except you can swear with your life that the other male won't do anything to them. But this is not possible right? You won't want to joke with your life right? So don't leave them at all.

• Pray for them. As a Christian believer, this is one of the most important points.

Conclusion :

Protecting your children is your sole responsibility as a parent. And because the girl child is more fragile, adequate care should be given to her.

Help her grow into a strong woman, that will love herself, her world and also love you.

Once again, happy International day of the girl child. I stand with the girl child.