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Imagine For instance as a parent, your four-year-old daughter comes home telling you an “uncle” in the neighbourhood took her to his room, made her lie down, removed her clothes, made attempt at penetration, before ejaculating all over her?

This is the nightmare Emeka Okafor (not real name) has been living with since July 30, 2010, when his second child and only daughter recounted how earlier that day, while playing around his wife’s shop on Shamura Street in Oshodi, a suburb of Lagos, a 22-year-old man, Onyedikachi Samuel, lured her into his room nearby in the pretext of wanting to give her “something”.

“I had just come back from work after picking them from the shop when my daughter called me and said ‘Uncle Onye put his wiwi in my ansarot and urinated on me.” Three times I asked her what do you mean. And each time, she repeated the same thing. At that, I melted. This was precisely by 8pm on that Friday,” said Mr. Okafor.

By “urinating”, she meant ejaculating. Mr. Okafor then took her into his room, inspected her, and in his words, “I could see traces of well cleaned sperm on her body.” The little girl said the man she called “uncle” gave her milk and told her he would beat her if she revealed their “secret”, in an attempt to cover his act.

Mustering the little sanity left in him, Mr. Okafor that same night reported the case at the Makinde Police Station, where officers interviewed his daughter and asked her to take them to the crime scene and identify her abuser.

Shocked beyond words “I didn’t know the boy in question. My daughter took them to his room where we met his step-mother who said her son had gone for night vigil. But outside the Boy’s Quarters where he lives, he emerged and my daughter pointed at him. In his presence she repeated what he did to her and he was arrested,” Mr. Okafor said.

At the station, Mr. Samuel denied having any carnal knowledge of her. But according to Mr. Okafor, he accepted taking Miss Okafor into his room and offering her milk, and asking her not to tell anyone because he had taken the milk without the consent of his step-mother.

Mr. Samuel was eventually charged for indecent assault at the Igbehin-Adun Magistrate Court 15, Oshodi, on August 2, 2010 where he pleaded not guilty. He met the court’s bail conditions of N200,000 and two sureties before the scheduled hearing of his case on August 16.

Efforts to reach Mr. Samuel failed as his elder brother and step-mother denied access to him. But a man who introduced himself as a human rights lawyer, Bello Hassan, working with Strong Towers Chambers, said Mr. Samuel is the one being persecuted. He couldn’t, however, explain why a four-year-old would make such allegations against his client.

“I don’t know why. I can’t attest to the veracity of their claims but my client is aggrieved because I know the other party has gone to great lengths to report this matter to several places. What is unknown is more than what is known. The court will decide. I won’t speak because the case is in court,” said Mr. Hassan.

But on August 16, the case was adjourned to October 18. The reason advanced was that the judiciary was on recess.

On October 18, it was deferred to November 8, as the magistrate was said to be indisposed. The case was again postponed to November 25 as Mr. Okafor was told the magistrate was attending a seminar.

Frustrated, Mr. Okafor took his case to Media Concern Initiative for women and children. The non-governmental organisation offered the family trauma management free of charge and also notified on their behalf, the Lagos State Social Welfare Service, the Department of Public Prosecution and the Office of the Public Defender, which gives free legal services.

“The case is in an open court when it should be in a family court, and this is a major concern because open courts are still handling cases of children. So we need the court to sit, for a motion to be moved to transfer the case to the family court. This is especially important to avoid the child becoming more traumatised,” said Princess Olufemi-Kayode, Media Concern’s executive director..

A haunting trauma

For the Okafor family, however, four months after, the alleged abuse is still fresh in their memory. Mr. Okafor says he has since stopped his children from referring to non-relatives as “uncle” as this connotation sends a wrong signal to children to believe strangers are family. He says he is fighting for his children and as many others his action will save from becoming the next victims.

“For months she kept asking ‘why did Uncle Onye urinate on me?’. All I could reply her is don’t mind him, he’s just a stupid boy. What else can I tell her? And each time I brought her to court, she would ask ‘Daddy why are we in court?’,” said Mr. Okafor.

“There are so many women out there, why an under-aged who doesn’t even know the difference between one and two. I can’t let it go because if nothing is done he will not know the gravity of what he has done. Will he not do it to other people’s children? I only have two kids and that is my only daughter. My reason for living is for them, so if I can’t defend them, then my life is worthless,” lamented Mr. Okafor.

Hoodlums rape 5 secondary school students in Owerri

By Chidi Nkwopara

OWERRI-Dare devil hoodlums numbering about 10, reportedly broke into the premises of Owerri Girls Secondary School last Sunday and raped five senior secondary school students.

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Confirming the ugly incident to newsmen in Owerri, the Principal, Senior Section, Mrs. Pat Uche Obasi, said the hoodlums stormed the SS3 dormitory between 1:00am and 2:00am but escaped when men of Imo State Police Command intervened.

Lamenting that the hoodlums succeeded in raping five girls, the principal also recalled that the bandits equally escaped through the hole they created in the school fence.

"These boys came from the back of the school premises. They came through a hole they created in the fence, armed with cutlasses, rods and what looked like a gun and went into SS3 dormitory. They succeeded in raping about five students in the process," the principal said.

The Divisional Police Officer, DPO, at the New Owerri Police Division, Mr. Okezie Okoroafor, confirmed the incident and explained that when he got a distress call from the former principal of the school, he quickly mobilized his men and intervened.

He said his men were able to rescue the school security officers, whose hands were tied to their legs by the rampaging rapists and assured the students and their parents that security had been beefed up in the school.

What if She quarrels with her Boyfriend or Husband and wants to teach him a lesson he wont forget ?

South African Dr. Sonnet Ehlers was on call one night four decades ago when a devastated rape victim walked in. Her eyes were lifeless; she was like a breathing corpse.

"She looked at me and said, 'If only had teeth down there,'" recalled Ehlers, who was a 20-year-old medical researcher at the time. "I promised her I'd do something to help
people like her one day."

Forty years later, Rape-aXe was born.

Ehlers is distributing the female condoms in the various South African cities where the World Cup soccer games are taking place.

The woman inserts the latex condom like a tampon. Jagged rows of teeth-like hooks line its inside and attach on a man's penis during penetration,
Ehlers said.

Once it lodges, only a doctor can remove it -- a procedure Ehlers hopes will be done with authorities on standby to make an arrest.

"It hurts, he cannot pee and walk when it's on," she said. "If he tries to remove it, it will clasp even tighter... however, it doesn't break the skin, and there's no danger of fluid exposure."

Ehlers said she sold her house and car to launch the project, and she planned to distribute 30,000 free devices under supervision during the World Cup period.

"I consulted engineers, gynecologists and psychologists to help in the design and make sure it was safe," she said.

After the trial period, they'll be available for about $2 a piece. She hopes the women will report back to her.

The mother of two daughters said she visited prisons and talked to convicted rapists to find out whether such a device would have made them rethink their
actions.

Some said it would have, Ehlers said.

Critics say the female condom is not a long-term solution and makes women vulnerable to more violence from men trapped by the device.

It's also a form of "enslavement," said Victoria Kajja, a fellow for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the east African country
of Uganda. "The fears surrounding the victim, the act of wearing the
condom in anticipation of being assaulted all represent enslavement that
no woman should be subjected to."

Kajja said the device constantly reminds women of their vulnerability.

"It not only presents the victim with a false sense of security, but psychological trauma," she added. "It also does not help with the psychological
problems that manifest after assaults."

However, its one advantage is it allows justice to be served, she said.

Various rights organizations that work in South Africa declined to comment, including Human Rights Watch and Care International.

South Africa has one of the highest rape rates in the world, Human Rights Watch says on its website. A 2009 report by the nation's Medical Research Council
found that 28 percent of men surveyed had raped a woman or girl, with
one in 20 saying they had raped in the past year, according to Human
Rights Watch.

In most African countries, rape convictions are not common. Affected women don't get immediate access to medical care, and DNA tests to provide evidence are unaffordable.

"Women and girls who experience these violations are denied justice, factors that contribute to the normalization of rape and violence in South African
society," Human Rights Watch says.

Women take drastic measures to prevent rape in South Africa, Ehlers said, with some wearing extra tight biker shorts and others inserting razor blades in their private
parts.

Critics have accused her of developing a medieval device to fight rape.

"Yes, my device may be a medieval, but it's for a medieval deed that has been around for decades," she said. "I believe something's got to be done ... and this
will make some men rethink before they assault a woman."

From the photo it is clear that one of the boys is black I hope say no be naija man pickin !

An eight-year-old girl cuddled her teddy bear and cried as she told a jury in a recorded interview that she had been raped by two ten-year-old boys.

The defendants sat with their mothers in the well of a courtroom as the recording was played at the Old Bailey yesterday. The girl, who was interviewed by specially trained police, said that the boys had refused to return her scooter unless she did what they demanded. She said that they led her from a lift at a block of flats to a bin shed, then a hedge, and exposed themselves and raped her.

Wiping away tears, she said that while it was happening she had thought about going to a sweet shop with her mother.

She said that on the day it happened, in October, she had been playing with her younger sister and a five-year-old friend when the boys approached and led her away. They told her to pull down her underwear, warning that she wouldn’t get her “scooter from the bush” if she didn’t

Sometimes rushing her sentences, the girl said: “Then they took me and my friend downstairs to the bin shed and they put the bins near the entrance so we couldn’t get out. We wanted to go out but they wouldn’t let us. They put the bins so no one could see us.”

Rosina Cottage, for the prosecution, said that the girl’s mother had been told by her younger daughter, who returned home alone, that the two boys had been “hurting her”. The alleged victim’s mother and younger sister went to look for her and came across the mother of the younger defendant and a five-year-old playmate.

When the boy’s mother asked the little boy where her son was, “he said that he was in a nearby field and that he was with her and that he was hurting her”, the prosecution said.

He pointed to the field and they went to find the children. The girl’s mother went into the field in Hayes, West London, but could not find her. “As she was walking out she saw her with the boys and asked what they had been doing. They all said nothing,” Ms Cottage said.

The mother asked for her daughter’s scooter back from the younger defendant. As they walked home, the woman “could see things were not right with her daughter”. It is claimed that the girl later told her mother what had happened and the police were called.

The judge and three barristers in the case are appearing without their usual wigs and gowns because the defendants and alleged victim are so young. Mr Justice Saunders has also moved from the raised judge’s bench to the lower court clerk’s seat. The sitting hours will be shortened.

The two boys often discreetly asked their mothers or solicitors questions and occasionally pointed at the screens used to show maps and CCTV footage of the area. The girl was introduced to the jury via a video link from an anteroom of the court after the taped recordings had been played.

Opening the case, Ms Cottage said that after the alleged attack the girl was taken to hospital complaining of stomach pains, and scratches and grazes were found. When officers interviewed the older boy he denied raping the girl and blamed the other, who said nothing to the police.

Both boys deny two charges of rape and two of attempted rape. The trial continues.