We Are Scarred For Life ~ Children Raped By Own Fathers

It is no ordinary crime. Incest, a distant word to many, claims its victims body and soul and shatters every sense of normalcy a child who grows up to experience such act is supposed to have. Such is the life of Bola and Tolu, who endured a sexual abuse by their father for two years. But for Susan, who had two children for her father, it is a different kettle of fish as a result of the identity problem her children will have to contend with. KUNLE FALAYI reports
Sexual abuse is one of the greatest crimes that could be committed against a child. The United Nations Convention on Rights of Child and Nigeria’s Child Rights Act give prominence to the protection of a child in the society as a result of this and specifically make case for the importance of the “primary care giver” which is the child’s immediate family.
But for many children, they are captives in their own family as they are constantly sexually assaulted by their own fathers. For such children, the scar the act leaves in their lives will not likely be erased anytime soon.

‘My children’s father is their grandfather’
The Lagos State Children’s Home at Ipaja Ayobo, like the one at Idi Araba, houses children whose complicated fates had brought them together to live as family.
It was their end-of-year social event; a period of merry-making and lots of singing and dancing.
In the crowd of hyperactive former victims of different forms of abuses in this home, was Susan (not real name). Smiles smoothed away the creases on the face of the fair, good-looking young lady as she was busy dishing out food, washing plates and helping her younger friends and co-residents of the home.
But few will wish upon themselves the unfortunate fate that brought this young lady to the home. She was no longer a child. But leaving the home was not that simple.
Susan was 17 years old in 2011. By that time, she already had two children for her father, Egbuna, a pastor of a church in Igando, Lagos, who is in his 50s. The Enugu State born father is currently awaiting judgment before the Family Court, Ikeja.
Susan, now 19, is one whose story many would hear and cry out the word, ‘abomination!’
She was rescued by the Esther Child Rights Foundation in 2011 after a group of women in the neighbourhood made a report.
Egbuna had nine children from his wife, who died in 2009. But he allegedly started sleeping with her eldest daughter shortly after, and she gave birth to two children.