By Aderintoye Adeola Esther
Rape is as old as man, but recently it has been occurring at an alarming rate such that various groups and stakeholders have continued to condemn it in strong terms.
Expectedly, the social media and the newspapers have been awash with stories of agitations against rapists. Some have suggested castrating them, others proposed life imprisonment.
However, some people have blamed the spate of rape cases on the indecent dressing of the female child.
Is that enough reason to rape a young girl? We now live in a generation where the females are vulnerable, sexually harassed and abused, and the victims are still being blamed despite their pains, trauma and death.
Young ,vibrant girls have been killed in their prime after being raped. Barakat Bello,18, was raped and killed in her own house at Ibadan, Oyo State.
She was a 100 level student of Federal College of Animal Health and Production (FCAHPT), Ibadan and had only come home from school as a result of the lockdown.
She was found dead in the bathroom in a pool of her own blood, murdered, after being raped.
Another popular case that went viral is the case of Uwavera Omozuwa, the 22-year-old Microbiology student of University of Benin that was attacked and raped in a church at Ikpoba Hill,Edo state.
She was raped and murdered in cold blood. The aforementioned cases happened within a space of three days in the same month although in different locations.
This tragedy of rape has been for a long time and it appears as if nothing can be done to stop it. New cases keep cropping up daily, sadly some victims remain silent because of the fear of being stigmatised.
This should not be so.Victims should be encouraged to speak and culprits dealt with accordingly.
If people say a girl is raped because of poor home training,what then do we say about the male child that indulges in the violent act of rape? I would say that in order to prevent rape,the boy child should be given proper home training and orientation about the consequences of the act.
If every male child is trained to respect women,there would be little or no cases of rape.
This is a wake-up call to every family to properly train their children both male and female in a God- fearing manner, teaching them proper morals, etiquette and to also shun all manner of indiscipline..
This helps the society to be in control of situations like this because families make up the society and good families make up a good society.
Having said that, I would also like to appeal to all men to control their urge while calling on government to introduce capital punishment. Say no to rape!
Aderintoye is a 200 Level Nursing Science student, University of Medical Sciences, Ondo.