During the course of my practice as a medical practitioner, I fairly regularly encounter cases of sexual assault, most involving females between the ages of 15-24years, many even younger and everytime I get a combined sense of sadness and anger; sadness about the physical and emotional trauma these innocent beings have been put through and anger that very likely, the perpetrators would get away with it.

It is a well known fact that sexual assault is the most underreported violent crime anywhere and everywhere in the world, the reason for this isn't far fetched: feelings of shame and guilt by the victims, fear of what the perpetrator would do to them if not fought or convicted and so on. Its also unfortunate that the community doesn't encourage victims to report the crime because of the very common mentality that victims must have done something sexually suggestive before they got raped,hence they usually don't take it as seriously as they are supposed to. For example, I was appalled one day when a 15yr old came to my clinic to report that she had been raped and one of the people I work with asked her why she was reporting the incident and that didn't she enjoy it? Its terrifying but the truth is a good number of Nigerians have this same mentality, however the truth is most perpetrators are people the victims are familiar with,people the victims have a certain level of trust in who then take advantage of this trust to commit this dastardly act.
Another sad thing about this issue is that for the very few people who report this incident, the police usually bring the victims to the hospital thinking an examination is all that's needed to confirm the victim was molested but, the truth is usually,the best we can do with the facilities and expertise on ground is to get evidence suggesting that penetration was made, however, to prove that an accused is the actual perpetrator, a raape kit, a well equipped crime lab and well trained expertise is required which is highly deficient in this country and very expensive to do where it is available, hence, most times, if a confession or eye witness account is not available, the rapist very often gets away with it and probably moves on to plan for his next victim. Many serial rapists know these loopholes and take advantage of it.

From all that has been stated above, its evident that the best way of controlling this cancer that is silently destroying our sense of wellbeing is to find ways of protecting ourselves and our children from this cause the physical emotional after effect can be brutal and the possibility of justice afterwards is not encouraging at all. Here are a few ideas:

1. Trust no one. Be vigilant with the people you surround yourself and your children with. Many incidents have been commited by people as close as family members, next door neighbors, house helps, gatemen, home tutors and so on.
2. Form an interactive relationship with your children so they can feel free to tell u things like when someone makes awkward advances on them and when someone asks them to do innapropriate things. Its also important to educate them from a very young age on what is inappropriate.
3. Only accept canned Orr bottled drinks that haven't been opened in parties and social gatherings. Date rape drugs are not a myth. They are very real and very much in circulation.
4. Drink alcoholic beverages with caution in parties and social gatherings.
5. Try as much as possible to avoid walking alone in dark secluded places.
6. Pepper spray: its a very effective concealed weapon but not so common in Nigeria. However, I believe one should be able to get it in d major cities like Lagos, Abuja, ph if you do your research well.
7. The most important is ALWAYS remember to pray to Baba God. Many have been extremely careful and still fell victims. One can only do so much on our own. We need his guidance everyday to see us through each day safely.

Well, you are very correct that a good number of cases result from risky behaviours which many victims had engaged in but lets not deny the fact that a very good number are also just victims of circumstance. Recently i met a 17year old victim who said the incident happened when she stepped out from a night vigil at church to urinate. She was attacked by three young men and was raped by two of them. Do we say it is her fault because,she didn't call someone to accompany her to the toilet? Certain risky behaviours of many women exposes,them to the crime and i mentioned many of them in my post but No behaviour justifies being raped. The crime has come to stay so the best way to handle this is to avoid putting oneself and ones children in risky situations which was the major point of the post.

Erm, u seem to be misunderstanding some things here. I apologise if im wrong but u seem to be bent on the idea that virtually every r@pe victim engaged in some form of risky behaviour first which eventually led to the r@pe and that is soo not true. The 17yr old victim i mentioned didn't go for d vigil alone. She was with her mom but she stepped out of the church to urinate alone. Its not strange for a teenager to be in a night vigil.People do that with their families all the time especially on Christmas and new years eve. Even children below 5yrs of age get r@ped, many by neighbours, uncles or even their own fathers. Are we gonna say they did something risky b4 that happened? Of course not. The point is No matter how careful one is, sometimes, bad things happen. Yes, i talk to kids and young adults to avoid behaviours that endanger themselves whenever and wherever i can. Using a forum like nairaland makes the information dispensation alot more effective and everyone that cares should do the same or at least try to do something. Its not a pointless campaign. Plus, majority of the members of nairaland are young adults who are prone to this same risky behaviour we're talking about so im still achieving my goal. In addition, Sexual assault is a world wide problem. Its not unique to Africans alone. The incidence is also very high even in developed countries like the usa and their youths engage in alot more risky behaviours than ours so lets not be harsh on Africans about this. Its not an African disease though i agree that some certain African beliefs and mentalities encourage this.