Nigeria's Culture of Silence

I just read this article and I am aggrieved and angry.

A friend gave me a book a few months ago written by Yejide Kilanko, Daughters Who Walk This Path. In the book, one of the two protagonists, Morayo, is repeatedly sexually abused by her cousin for nearly a decade and, on the day her parents find out, they confine her to a prison of silence that lasts years and deepens the trauma she has experienced.

What makes this book so heartbreaking is the fact that this actually happens, as described in the above article written by Niran Adedokun. Especially in Nigeria, parents of survivors of rape and abuse often do not talk to their children about it, locking the abused between walls of silence and increasing the stigma and pain they feel. Often, perpetrators are let off with a slap on the wrist – especially when the aggressor is a relative or family friend.

Some of the reasons parents do not talk about the abuse is because they feel ashamed (How could this happen to my child? What will people think?), powerless (I didn’t do anything to stop my child from getting abused) and often simply do not know what to say.

This cycle must stop. Letting survivors of abuse suffer alone – and words cannot describe what they experience, from anxiety to post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicidal thoughts – is inhumane. Many victims blame themselves for the abuse and sometimes fall into a state of self-loathing. Parents and loved ones therefore play a vital role in lifting survivors up and helping them get through the hurt. The law – and the law has failed victims time and time again, shaming and blaming them for the abuse – needs to actively begin to oppose aggressors. As Adedokun mentions, although rape is punishable by law, too often the law does not do enough to castigate offenders.

The distress survivors of abuse experience is worsened when the abused is a child. Abused children sometimes grow up to have a warped understanding of sexuality and what sex is supposed to represent; they might grow up without a solid sense of self-worth and self-esteem. This is why parents (families and society at large) must begin to tackle rape and the chaos it leaves in its wake, by: letting children know what rape is and that it is always wrong, marginalizing aggressors, compelling the law to prosecute and punish rapists, and helping victims heal. It is not an easy feat to accomplish, especially in a nation that is accustomed to sweeping things under the carpet, but it begins by breaking our culture of silence.