When my neighbour thought of educating her ward on sex, she didn't know she was heading for the shock of her life. The child was sent to Lagos by her parent from another state to help my neighbour with her domestic chores. she was barely thirteen years at that time.
My neighbour couldn't believe what she was hearing and called for my attention. We were friends.
It was just one question that led to this shocking truth.
"Do you know what sex is or are you a virgin?" my neighbour asked in confusion, because she obviously didn't even have an idea on how to start the discussion.
The little girl explains in tears:
Aunty I have a confession to make and please don't tell my mother. It
happened, while I was with my parent, my brother was sleeping with me.
I actually refused the first time he tried to sleep with me, but he got angry
and said, he will never play with me.
At this point i had so much anger in me and i asked her "how old were you when this started"
I was nine years when it started, I said NO bluntly to him aunty the
second time,but he convinced me by saying, he has been doing it with my elder sister for long,
and that there was nothing special about it.
"How old was your brother and sister then" I asked her.
My brother was thirteen and my sister was sixteen years,
but she was in a boarding school. The sexual activities between me and
my brother,became a daily thing because my parent were never home, and whenever I said no,
he stopped talking to me and I was uncomfortable with that.God knows I tried to stopped but couldn't. Talking to my parent was not an option.So when my mother told me I had to come to Lagos to help you,I couldn't object because I saw it as an escape route...
At this stage we were speechless, I snapped out of it because I knew I had to, so I suggested her mother should be called immediately.
But the truth of the matter is, In this part of the world. Most parents just want to sweep issues like this under the carpet as quickly as possible and just move on. They refuse to seek help,neither do they discuss it with anybody, because the act is shameful.
Instead of making them understand the consequences of their action, we secretly look for ways to protect them by performing spiritual cleansing
Could this be the fault of our parenting skills or the society, that has done nothing on community engagement that can reach and benefit children
I understand this is a difficult situation to tackle, but we should understand this, as a sibling-to-sibling sexual abuse. So for us to deal with it, we must understand the cause(s) of this behaviour, make them understand the risk factors /consequences, as this always leaves the family dysfunctional...
The sad truth was, the victim's mother swept this under the carpet and ignored family members who requested for the presence of the children.