Sexual Assault Perpetrators Are People You May Know.
They are in your communities, religious institutions, political institutions, and may be among your friends and family members.
I grew up in an elite part of Lagos, Nigeria, in a world with house helps, gardeners and drivers. My siblings and I went to private school and had the kind of parents who would make plans to fly us abroad when the time came for university education. We may not have been the wealthiest, but my parents did well for themselves. More importantly, we were happy. Even when my father passed away in 2010, amidst all the uncertainty that I knew the next few years would bring, I was not afraid of going without. Suffice to say, for much of my childhood I remained well protected from the harsher realities of life.
The first time my mind encountered the meaning of rape, I was 9 or 10. My mother had my sister and I watch the Fred Amata movie Tumini’s Song. In the movie 6-year-old Tumini is abused by her uncle and forced to live with the trauma and stigma of rape. My mother used the movie as a teaching opportunity; “Don’t sit on an uncle's lap, don’t sit between his legs……. no not even Uncle Tola, not even Uncle James”. Her instructions were simple, but I did not understand. She had told us these things before, but even with the movie I did not understand. Tumini’s uncle was a bad man, but I didn't think I had bad uncles in my life.
When I was 12, my aunt explained the word ‘pedophile’ to me and my eyes widened with disbelief. I was just old enough to have a biological understanding of sex, and though I had not quite developed a sense of sexual ethics, I knew that pedophilia was a perversion. When she told me what the word meant, I had said to my aunt, oh there are no pedophiles in Nigeria. To me pedophiles were those strange-looking men on Law and Order Special Victims Unit. My aunt Tiwa had laughed at me and called me naïve.
A few years later, in boarding school my roommate would casually tell me about how her uncle had sexually assaulted her when she was a child. In that same room we would discuss Senator Ahmed Yerima’s marriage to a 13-year-old girl and we would watch Stella Damascus’ passionate YouTube video rightfully condemning him and the Nigerian Senate.
Some months after graduation I visited another Aunt for a few weeks in Sangisa, Lagos. She lived in the upstairs apartment of a rented duplex with her family, the kind of place where the neighbors knew each other’s last names and what each person did for a living. There was a 15-year-old girl who hawked breakfast foods in front of the duplex every day. In the mornings I would go downstairs to buy Peak milk from her and we developed an easy camaraderie. One morning I came downstairs to buy milk and I could not find her. She has gotten married, they told me. Married. I said nothing then; I did not know what to say. For a long time I have not known what to say or think.
In February last year, I noticed a wave of anger building within me. I did not know where exactly it was coming from, but I knew it was there. In June, in the wake of Busola Dakolo’s rape allegations against Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo, my anger peaked and burst into disillusionment. It felt like to be a woman was to always, always be burdened with the threat of sexual assault. Seeing the way her story unfolded, it felt like shared trauma. I remember not being able to finish watching her interview on YouTube because of how heart-breaking it was. I know it is naïve and ignorant to disbelieve that sexual assault can happen in church, but that was what I felt initially. Not that I did not believe Busola. I did; I do. But it was so hard for me to process, and I desperately wanted it to not be true. I grew up in church; I got saved in church. The community I found there changed my life. To be confronted with something so heinous in a context I was so familiar with was disconcerting, to say the least. It shook me unlike anything I have ever experienced before in my life. It is easy to stand at a distance, and be indifferent to the injustice that happens to people far from you, different from you, un-relatable to you. It is not right, it is not justifiable, but it is easy. When tragedy happens, you should not have to feel like it could have happened to you to feel empathy. Nevertheless, when I saw Busola Dakolo, I saw myself. I thought to myself, it could have been me. Hers was not just some story I read on the internet that I could keep in my prayers; it was personal. So it stung when the people I loved, the people I considered family and friends, were indifferent, when they did not believe her, or worse, when they mocked her. I remember two of my male friends saying to me that she was sent from the devil. I remember seeing people referring to her as a Jezebel that men in Christian ministry need to be watchful of. What bothered me the most was how people started this #Istandwiththechurch movement, conflating sexual assault in the church with unity in the church. As if to stand with Busola Dakolo was to bring about disunity in the church. As if it was Busola Dakolo against the church. It was a cop-out; a misguided defensive stance that did nothing to amplify the voice of the victim or address the issue of sexual assault in the church. I can liken the situation to something similar I see in the African American community. Whenever a popular black man is accused of sexual assault (for example, R. Kelly), some black people take this pro-black stance at the expense of the victim because they think they are protecting the black community. Typically, these men have made notable contributions to their community so it is hard for people to see past their achievements and good deeds. But people are complex and severely flawed. They may be good in one light and bad in another. Not all sexual assault perpetrators are pot-bellied, unattractive, and bald. They can be generous, they can be kind, attractive, funny. It is these very traits that make them appear non-threatening. I get it, I do. But even our heroes are flawed. The ability to compartmentalize men as sexual assault perpetrators based on only character traits is just not a luxury we have.
Last September, a friend of mine called me in tears when a boy she was friends with attempted to sexually assault her. She had liked him; had wanted him to ask her out. When they were alone together for the first time, he had forcefully tried to take liberties beyond what she permitted. Almost every woman I know closely has either been sexually assaulted, been under the immediate threat of sexual assault, or knows another woman who was sexually assaulted. The United Nations reports that “one in four girls and ten percent of boys have been victims of sexual violence” in Nigeria. The truth of the matter is sexual assault perpetrators are people we may know; people in our communities, religious institutions, political institutions, and maybe amongst our friends and families. I know it sounds alarming to hear that you may know a rapist. Good, it should alarm you, not offend you. I am not saying all men are rapists (and if you think that is what I’m saying, you’re part of the problem), I am alerting you to a real problem in our society. It is not enough to pray. It is not enough (and I would say it is even counter-effective and detrimental to the cause) to say things like #Istandwiththechurch when accusations of sexual assault are made against religious leaders. It is not enough to make performative statements like #IstandwithBusolaDakolo on social media.
This past Women’s History Month scrolling through Instagram and Twitter, I saw big Nigerian companies and cooperations celebrating the accomplishments of women. Good. Fantastic. They should. But what I also saw was superficial and tone-deaf marketing strategies masked as support for women’s rights. Because it is Women’s History Month, it is cool to jump on the idea of women’s rights. What I want to see is for them to put their money where their mouth is. You support women right? Where were you during the 2018 Market March in Yaba? Where were you during Senator Elisha’s sex toy scandal? Where were you after the 2019 Abuja Police Raid? What are you actively doing to educate, protect and empower the women in your community ?
When it comes to education about sexual assault, the conversation usually involves women teaching the female child how to put off male sexual appetites and unwanted male attention. As a child I remember being told things like close your legs when you sit, don’t sit on a man’s lap, hold your shirt to your chest when you bend over. I remember the collective sigh from young women on Sundays when we heard “All women and girls should wait behind after service” because we knew we were about to be lectured on modesty. Women are taught to not dress a certain way. Women are taught to cover their drinks in bars. Women are taught to not travel alone at night. At home, school, and church women have always been taught and scrutinized for their dressing and behavior. What I do not remember is a corresponding conversation to boys and men about how to treat a woman with dignity, how to respect her body, to not think of it as his, or as for his pleasure, how to understand that no means no. Instead, we shift the burden of preventing sexual assault to women.
I don’t believe that men have a harder time exercising sexual restraint than women do. But I have heard many men and women express this idea. One argument I’ve heard is that men are just more easily aroused. But is that true, or is it just that the evidence of their desire is more obvious? The thing is, male sexual desire (heterosexual desire) is more acceptable (or less condemned) than female sexual desire. So even when a man makes “locker room talk” or lewd comments or inappropriate sexual behavior, it can be written off as ‘men will be men’. We do a disservice to men when we let them off for inappropriate sexual behavior, it shows young boys how low our expectation of manhood really is. If we are to change the trajectory of sexual assault in Nigeria, we need to have conversations with boys and girls about how to treat each other with respect. We need to teach boys not just about consent, but also about not objectifying a woman. We need to enforce laws that criminalize practices like child marriage. I know that I speak for a lot of women when I say we all know guys who have done and said things that have made us uncomfortable. But we say nothing because they’re our friends, family members, teachers, pastors. As much as we can, we need to speak up to protect ourselves, and the children in our communities. Rape culture is much bigger than anyone of us, and it can feel as if one is fighting a loosing battle. But I am learning that the only way big changes can happen is if small changes happen first. Yes, there are larger policies and reform that need to happen, but we can also catalyze that process from our homes, our religious institutions, our schools. It is only in being intentional about changing the communities nearest to us that we can change the culture of the nation. Usually, I would say this is more self-reflection than anything else, but it is not. This is a call to action for me and you. We all have some unlearning to do.
