The Executive Director of the Together To Win Fondation, Tombari Kote, has urged parents to find time and communicate with their children on sex education.
Kote said that this would help to prevent any case of child molestation in which a neighbour or a parent or family relative would have sex with an underaged girl.
Kote said: “Parents should have time to listen to their children. Parents should be able to give their children sex education. In this part of the world, our parents seem to have precluded sex education in the home because we try to be so spiritual and we don’t want to say some things at home, but parents should be able to give their children sex education (and tell their children) that they should be able to report to them if anyone touches them (in sensitive parts)”.
The executive director of the non-governmental organization said that there should be increased communication between parents and children so that the children could report anyone who attempts to touch them sexually so the parents could consider whether or not to take action over the behaviour.
Kote was reacting in a radio programme over the case of a 38-year-old man who had sexually assaulted his three daughters and was being handed over to the police in Rivers State by civil society organizations when he returned from his hideout.
It was said that the man (name withheld) had asked for forgiveness from his wife but assaulted the third daughter in May this year.
The wife said that she wants her husband prosecuted by the police saying that her life was not safe since her husband knows that she was aware of the act.
The executive director of the non-governmental organization described the trend as worrisome where a father would have sex with his daughters.
He said that perpetrators in their confessions had blamed the devil for the act but said that they have also confessed to membership of ‘cult gang’.
Kote said that the crime was bad for the society adding that some of the perpetrators were “serial offenders”.
He noted that mothers had failed to speak up against the act for fear that they would be stigmatized and in other cases because of the intimidation and threats from perpetrators or from family members and the groups they belong to.
He advised people to break the culture of silence so that the practice could end.
The executive director also said that every member of the society should speak up against sexual molestation and rape and other forms of sexual violence saying that the perpetrators of the act should be shamed.
