Rape: you, your love ones can avoid it

Ranmilowo Ojalumo
Rape cases have been rampant in Nigeria in the past few weeks in Nigeria. Especially the case of Uniben student, a 22 year-old Vera Uwaila Omozuwa, who was allegedly raped to death in a redeemed church parish in Benin has raised serious concern on the rising case of raping in Nigeria.
While many Nigerians were still disturbed by the Omozuwa’s case, an 18 years old girl, identified as Bello Barakat was reportedly gang raped in Ibadan. Many people, groups and the federal government have since condemned the development. Several Protests have also been staged since then.
In actual fact, rape is when a person intentionally penetrates another’s vagina, anus or mouth with a penis, without the other person’s consent. Similar to that is what is called sexual assault. Hence there is what is called assault by penetration and that is when a person penetrates another person’s vagina or anus with any part of the body other than a penis, or by using an object, without the person’s consent.

What separates sex or a gesture of affection, from sexual assault is a matter of consent. That is, the parties involved agreeing to what’s happening by choice and legally, the party must have the freedom and ability to make that choice.
It is therefore important to note here that before you have sex with anybody, you must have the consent of the other party (s), or else you become a rapist. This however doesn’t apply to men alone, a female can also be accused of raping if she did not get the consent of a man before having sex with him.
To avoid being raped, you must dress decently by always wearing clothes that cover every sensitive part of your body, because a sensitive part of your body seen today can trigger rape tomorrow. This applies to both male and female. Exposing sensitive part of your body, it should be noted, can make opposite sex have sexual arousal, so avoid it.
Whether male or female, try and avoid touching sensitive part of your body unnecessarily. The danger of this act is that it make you to begin to have sexual arousal and when this happened, the next available person may be the instrument you will use to satisfy such arousal, and when you don’t have the consent of the person, it becomes rape.
Closely related to that is constant exposure to pornography. This will obviously make you to have sexual desire and the next available person may be at the receiving end; again if you don’t have the consent of the person, it could be termed as rape.
Again, as a lady, you must be careful of where you go. Avoid places where there are notorious men. If you must go to such places, don’t go alone, don’t even attempt to go to such places at night. Don’t brag before men (whether necessary or unnecessary) that you have sexual discipline. This can trigger gang up against you.
There have been several cases of children defilement by adult men, to avoid this, parent should be conscious of whom they live their children with. Parent should also be conscious of where their children go.
It is pertinent to state here that an adult rape victim can defend herself or himself. However, everyone needs to learn how and to what extent. The victim should however be careful before making attempt to defend herself (or himself in some rare cases) so as to avoid sustaining severe physical injury which sometimes leads to death.
There has also been question whether it is right or legal for rape victim to kill the rapist. There have been answers to the question from various quarters. The first thing is for the victim to resist it by any and all means without necessarily sustaining severe injuries but if your denfense mechanism at that point will make you to be proned to severe physical injury, it is better to use wisdom.
For instance, the metropolitan police in America clearly stated in its website that “to be legally justified in killing an attacker, a rape victim must reasonably believe that the rapist intends to kill or grievously injure her. In many rape situations, the threat of severe physical harm is clear; the rapist is armed or threatens death or grievous injury.
“Situations where a rapist does not explicitly or implicitly threaten physical harm beyond forcible intercourse are less clear regarding the victim’s right to use deadly force against the rapist. Current law does not clearly articulate a basis for the right to use deadly self-defense when a person reasonably believes that harm will be limited to forcible intercourse”.
The laws regarding this may be varying in different countries. However, you need to be guided and try not to be a victim.
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