CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE: Naming and Shaming The Real Devil

What's that thing that makes your voice drop a notch when expressing yourself?

 There. That's the exact devil that you need to speak up against. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Domestic Violence was the new topic in our Home Economics class last week. (Funny how I spent four good years of my life in the University studying English, only to find myself teaching Home Economics in my service year).

I took my young JSS 1 students through the different forms of domestic violence, taking time to explain Child Abuse in even greater detail. 

Somehow, the deeper I got into the issue of child abuse, the more personal I got with it, and by the time I was explaining sexual abuse as a form of child abuse, I could scarcely contain my passion and pain.

My voice must have taken a higher pitch as the forty-minute lesson progressed, because I saw a staff member pass by the classroom window with a strange look on her face. 

I do not know for sure what elicited that expression from her-- my voice itself, or the words that it conveyed. 

I had been telling the students, or rather pleading with them, never to let their guards down as paedophiles come with many different labels: Teacher. Uncle. Sister. Cousin. Father.  Brother. Aunty.

I understand that it is easier for kids to call out sexual predators who are not closely related to them, but who do these kids turn to when it is their favorite aunts who seems to take special interest in their private parts?

Many of these children are even abused without outrightly knowing it. They have a feeling that something's not right but they don't know to call it wrong either. Who is to tell them that respect for any adult ends where their sexuality begins to be exploited? 

Daddy loves me, he buys me whatever I ask and he doesn't  flog as much as mummy does... I think he just likes to touch my bumbum whenever he is not too happy. Sometimes it hurts but I allow him so that he can be happy again...

I cannot tell my parents that brother ### always asks me to play with his thing... 

Why does aunty ### like to touch my penis whenever she's playing with me?... 

These and many more are awkward situations that many children are either too ignorant to recognize as abuse, or too scared to report. 

"Anyone can try to abuse you, don't be afraid to report to those that can help you... Nobody has the right to touch your private parts in the name of playing... 

"girls, do not only watch out for male abusers, there are female abusers too...

"some parents sexually abuse their children too... Don't be afraid to report such if you ever find yourself in any situation like that..."

I was on that last statement when the staff member walked by. 

And my voice dropped.

And I betrayed the cause. Then I began to wonder if I wasn't overzealous in handling the topic, if I wasn't beginning to create unnecessary suspicions in the minds of the kids about their parents and other loved ones.

I'm not sure how I managed to end the lesson with the same amount of passion (or did I even?)

But now, away from the attention of the students and from all prying eyes, I have come to the truth that the fact that I was a bit embarrassed to teach the uncomfortable truth to the students in the presence of an adult gives me all the more reason to teach it, and teach it more convincingly. 

How could I expect the young students to boldly call out abusers when I myself could not boldly speak out against abuse? 

Not anymore though. Not anymore. 

I owe it to my young students. I owe it to my generation. I owe it to the satisfaction of my soul.

What's that devil that makes your voice drop?

24.5.18