Good Parenting Panacea For Sexual Assaults – Commissioner for Women Affairs
Lagos State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Mrs. Bolaji Dada has advocated proper parenting, monitoring of social media content exposure, Alleviation of poverty, and successful marriages as panacea to incidences of rape and sexual harrasments.
Mrs Dada said this at a colloquium organized by the United Action for change, with the theme ‘contextualization of the rape culture and sexual assault in Nigeria, the search for multidimensional remedy’.
Dada also called for the enactment of stricter laws backed by stiffer penalties including death sentence and castration as one of drastic measures needed to address the increasing rates of rape cases and other forms of sexual abuses.
She said that although there are various Laws that ensure offenders do not go unpunished in different parts of the country, ignorance and culture of silence had beclouded the fighting spirit to contend offenders.
She identified poor parenting as one of the root causes of RAPE especially in Nigeria where some parents could be best described as absentee parents who abdicate their roles to helpers and neighbors without considering the effect of such on their wards.
She added that Poverty and illiteracy are two hydra-headed monsters that also contribute to the rate of recorded rape cases in addition to breakdown in marriages which makes the products of such union vulnerable to the society.
” We cannot downplay the role of the internet; particularly social media where all manner of pornography can be watched by hungry youths, paedophiles and socio psychologically maladjusted males with as little as N100 data. This is compounded by corruption of public morals that occurs daily in public spaces”, the Commissioner submitted.
She urged parents to encourage both male and female children and even adult victims to speak out as the culture of silence had greatly enhanced rape and sexual assault in the past.
