Thursday, 4 May 2017

MUST READ: Pedophilia,our nation and her ignorance


There it was again by the bottom left Corner of the newspaper. Slowly it has crept in un-noticed and has come to make our environment its breeding ground. Nowadays one can hardly scroll through social media without its reports and yet it doesn't seem like anybody is truly noticing. Our people have turned a blind eye while the problem grew, whereas the adverse effects both now and in the future knows no bounds.

To the average Nigerian man, the word Pedophilia may not mean much or give a higher definition view of its true complexity, but when you say child molesters which is the meaning we have tagged it with, he tends to lean with the position of the general public.pedophile as a person who has a sexual interest in children. Now though these definitions paint a good picture of the matter at hand, they do not however tell the whole story. That is why Wikipedia described Pedophilia as a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to pre-adolescent children i.e children 13 years and below.
Now that we know this epidemic is slowly ravaging our communities, traumatizing our future ones and silently leaving its marks on our land, it is important to understand fully this unwelcomed visitor who seems to have come here to stay.
Pedophilia as a sexual orientation is self discovered and not chosen. It is a disorder of sexual preference, more or less like homosexuality. But Pedophilia is grouped under mental disorders and as such are meant to be subject to the therapeutic care of psychiatrists. Basically what we should know is that pedophiles are not all necessarily child molesters. Though some pedophiles i.e with psychiatric disorders may be guilty of child molestation, not all child molesters are pedophiles. The particular cause of Pedophilia is not yet known with some researchers linking it with brain structure and function. Invariably, there is no evidence that Pedophilia can be cured but therapies have been known to help them refrain from acting on their desires.
The increasing rate of the acts perpetuated by the molesters both amongst the pedophiles and others generally should not be under estimated. The effects of the trauma faced by the children also cannot be over emphasized. The more we don't pay attention, this mense continues to grow increasingly in our society. Statistics show that 3 in 10 people know of a victim of child rape and that 67% of Nigerians believe that there is a high prevalence of child rape in Nigeria. Al Jazeera reported in March 21, 2014 that in Kano state 100 child rape cases were recorded in just two months. So we ask ourselves, why is child rape on the increase? Why are molesters unearthing and unravelling their dalk sides lately? What is the role of the guardians and parents? Where should the goverment come in?
A pastor harbouring and defiling little children, neighbour rapes next door juvenile, teacher sexually molests student, father rapes daughter. Such headlines have become a normal daily routine and it must be addressed.
It is important to note that such cases mostly involve men and these men are usually important people in the child's life. They gain the trust and of the children and ultimately take advantage of them. Now this is a call to parents, wards and guardians to be conscious of the happenings of their surroundings, be vigilant with respect to their little ones, where they go, who they are with and always speak to them about their bodies, what they should allow and not allow and the things they should report.
Now it will be unruly to just illuminate on the true nature of Pedophilia and still leave the society passing one-sided judgement and persecution on them. As stated earlier, Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder and as you can imagine, it goes with psychopathologies such as low self esteem, depression, anxiety, personality problems and so on. These people need to be addressed as in many cases they did not choose to be who they are, but the environment and the Nigerian system needs to help them be a better version of themselves. We have spoken on the cause and its effects, it will only suffice to propose recommendations.
People living with Pedophilia are very delicate as most times they live isolated with their thoughts and depressions. In our country where therapy is yet to take its full course, we need to start somewhere. As stated earlier, a cure to this condition does not exist yet, but therapies have been known to keep them from acting on their desires. We need to raise the awareness and consciousness of people to this disorder and pass the message across that as a nation we do not stand for discrimination, instead we stand together to rise above our limitations. Trained proffessionals who are well learnered in the field should be applied to different therapeutic and rehabilitative psychiatric centres across the country where they can start community and societal outreach to raise the consciousness of the people and help those who desperately need it. Moreso people should report cases of incidents relating to molestation or sexual abuse of children to the appropriate quarters so as to properly address the matter and so such children can be properly evaluated mentally so as to avoid post traumatic stress disorder.
We do not chose how we come into this world, the conditions we meet and the ones we come with, but we have a choice on how to live with those conditions.
Let us help each other live well. We are all humans and we deserve a chance at being able to live better.
https://adedejiklaus..com.ng/2017/05/must-read-pedophiliaour-nation-and-her.html

I will reply later.I do not totally agree with this post