[size=1[color=#990000][/color]8pt]Incest: Who will save these girls?[/size]

Written by Banji Aluko Sunday, 04 July 2010

THE word, incest, which is sexual experience with a blood relation is regarded as a taboo all over the world; a grievous abomination before God, deities and man. Not even in nations, where intra-family unions are allowed is such an act condoned. In the centuries past, punishments were meted out to people who committed the act. The act is even punishable in some cultures with death or ostracisation or banishment. Such was how offensive the act was considered then. In other cultures, people found guilty of the act were forced to dance naked around the markets, and finally settle at the shrine, where they would make sacrifices to appease the gods for defiling the land.

With the passing of time, incest, although still seen as abomination, is gradually becoming a common occurrence. And when they occur, one can only pity the victims as they are usually left with agonising pain forever. In virtually every society, irrespective of tribe or colour, the act keeps occurring. Recently, some absurd cases of incest were recorded.

A recent occurrence was that of a Ghanian pastor, Prophet Nana Kofi Yirenkyi, who is in custody for allegedly defiling his 10-year-old daughter. Although Prophet Yirenkyi, also known as ‘Jesus One Touch’, was alleged to have blamed his househelp cum watchman for defiling the daughter, the victim was reported to have told some elders of the family and the police that it was his father who had been defiling her.

In Nigeria is the pathetic story of a 45-year old Philip Ben from Akwa Ibom State who was reported to have deflowered his daughter and in the process impregnated the 12-year-old teenager. The man, during interrogation, was reported to have confessed to the police that he had sex several times with the girl.

If the story was pathetic, then how can one describe this. One Mr. Emmanuel Obot, 46, did not only rape his two daughters several times, but ended up impregnating one of them.

Mr. Obot was alleged to have threatened to kill the two girls aged, 22 and 24, if they failed to agree to his incestuous desires. On one occasion, he wilfully destroyed one of the girl's clothings so as to have carnal knowledge of her. The other was also flogged several times for struggling with her father. In a case of poetic justice, he was recently sentenced to seven years imprisonment by an Ikeja magistrate court. "It is the most atrocious of crime that could be meted out on one's flesh and blood.

The action of the accused will leave a psychological torture on the girls," was the declaration of the trial judge.

The case of 16-year-old Miss Aminat Adeleke, a virgin, deflowered by her own father in Ibadan, also leaves a sour taste in the mouth. According to the girl, she had been living with her maternal grand-mother after the death of her mother when her father came to lure her to Ibadan. And when she was defiled by her father, it became clear to her that her father actually brought her to Ibadan so as to gain entrance into her ‘honey pot’.

Following the increase in the rate of incest, Sunday Tribune, during the week, asked Nigerians the appropriateness of leaving grown up daughters with their fathers alone at home and the reasons for the increase in incest.

Mrs. Bola Bakare, trader
No. Due to the increase in sexual harassment by fathers of their daughters, one needs to be very careful. I trust my husband but men generally should not be trusted. Looking at the issue from spiritual angle, it is very dangerous. It is not because some fathers are willing to sleep with their daughters, but such things happen due to the fact that the father might be possessed. This problem is also common among men who indulge in extra-marital affairs because when they can’t find a partner, they lay their hands on anything they find around them. It is not only fathers that perpetrate such acts. A close friend of mine, who has been married for about five years, recently discovered that her husband slept with her mother when they were at the university. All we need to do is to pray for such a thing not to occur in our homes.

Mr. Bello, media consultant
I don't believe there is anything wrong with daughters being left with their fathers alone at home. Most of these fathers who sleep with their daughters are jobless if you find out. Even mothers can be careless with their daughters which can lead to prostitution. Poverty can also lead to that. The major reason for this act nowadays I believe has to do with the high level of divorce. Most of these useless fathers are mostly single parents and any time they feel like doing it, they end up sleeping with their daughters. In situation where a teenage girl lives with her father without the presence of the mother, such thing can occur. Putting the custody of female children in the care of mothers may not solve the problem because the mothers will still marry another man who might want to defile the poor girl too.

Mr. Ochulo U., banker,
This kind of a question does not require any answer than yes. If the children cannot be left with fathers at home, then such men are not worth being father. How can a father think of deriving sexual pleasure from his own daughter? This attitude is a criminal offence. A man should rather go to a prostitute than thinking of going to his daughter. As for those who go to the minors, they are nothing but insane and have nothing better to do in life. If any responsible and God-fearing man is caught in this act, we can say that the devil pushed him to put him in shame and destroy him.

Mr. Ayelaagbe, teacher
The issue of father and daughter staying together in a house does not mean anything and should not induce incest between the father and the daughter. Let’s look into the case of a father who has no male child but has five to six girls as children in the house. Does that mean that he should be sleeping with them? Any reasonable man is not supposed to be found in this kind of a mess because a man can marry more than one wife if he wants to satisfy his sexual urge than defiling his daughter.

Mrs. Fajemisin, business woman
Such thing is unnatural. At least we have parents and we lived with them before we moved on with our lives but it is nowadays you find such things happening. We are in the end time and different unspeakable things are happening. All these things are not natural. May God see us through this evil time.

Ustaz Sanusi Afolakeu, Islamic scholar.
The issue of fathers violating their daughters could be traced to the decadence in our culture. We have defaulted in the laws and ethics of Islam. In the holy Qur'an, Almighty Allah instructed us that whenever our children reach the age of adolescence, we should separate the males from the females including the father and mother and on no account should the father go to the girls’ room during odd hours. Even if he must enter the girls’ apartment, he must knock the door before he enters. On the issue of dressing, the manner female children expose their bodies within the house these days is bad. Everything boils down to how we live and organise our homes. To stop this, it is not that fathers should be separated from their daughters, but fathers should organise their homes by separating male children from female and dressing should e controlled.

Additional report by Olaide Fatai, Mosunmola Balogun, Tesiwaju Adejumo, Gboyega Adeniyi.
http://www.tribune.com.ng/sun/index.php/features/1456-incest-who-will-save-these-girls