By Iyakale Yakubu
Leader of FOMWAN in Plateau Central Nigeria, Mairo Sani, said this in an interview with journalists in Jos.
She said separate rooms ensured children were not affected by sexual relations of parents thus discouraging desire to explore such practice.
“I advise mothers and guardians to ensure that they should have separate rooms from their children so that the children are not affected by their sexual relation and may not attempt to practice with their siblings or anyone.
“Such children may grow up with sexual scenes imprinted on their minds and would like to practice with people around even forcefully thus increasing the number of child rape and sexual offences bedeviling the society, it is psychological,’’ she said.
She said children should be properly taken care of especially girls who were usually sent for hawking of goods not more than N100 of which they are being abused in the process.
According to her, “Girls sent to hawk are more susceptible to child rape because they are exposed to all manner of people, the items may not be even up to N100, these girls may be paid more than that and violated at the same time, it is sad because they may may be just five years.”
Sani said scenes of child sexual offences should not be tampered with for evidence to prosecute culprits and the victims taken straight to the police or the Child Protection Network(CPN) office where they would not be financially burden.
She said the network whose objective was to protect the child from violence of all forms and ensure their well being would conduct their analysis, take them to hospital for treatment and ensure justice for victims.
She said strict punishment enacted for child offenders was laudable sand would reduce the number of cases in the society.
The CPN in Plateau is currently following up 50 cases of child sexual offences.
