Child Sexual Abuse: Felicia Ogbuja is justly going to jail

They abused their ward

I was first outraged when I read a tweet that appeared to conflate two separate though intrinsically related issues regarding child sexual abuse, safeguarding, duty of care, the obstruction of an investigation that could have led to justice and in the middle of it all the resulting death of a 13-year-old schoolgirl, Miss Ochanya Ogbanje. [Premium Times: Ochanya: State court acquits husband of raping minor, federal court convicts wife of negligence]

Felicia Ochiga-Ogbuja was the aunt(-in-law) of the deceased, and her alleged child-abusing husband, Andrew Ogbuja; a lecturer at the Benue State Polytechnic, her alleged child-abusing son, Victor Ogbuja; who is currently a fugitive from justice, are maternal relations of the deceased, meaning the former was her uncle and the latter was her first cousin, mentioned also is Winifred Ogbuja, another first cousin of the deceased. Ochanya Ogbanje had left the village to live with relations of her mother to be cared for and supported in her education by this family.

They terrorised their ward

Whilst the chronology of events is not clearly established, it would appear that Winifred had informed her mother Felicia of the ongoing sexual abuse of Ochanya by both Andrew and Victor which Felicia failed to stop and had apparently threatened to eject the schoolgirl from her house if she told anyone of the sexual abuse.

The terrified schoolgirl left with no protection from assault by her supposedly responsible guardians endured further abuse from the pair of males in the house until the time that she was seriously harmed presenting urinary and faecal incontinence with a diagnosis of Vesicovaginal fistula (VVF) attributed to serial sexual rape allegedly perpetrated by both men, for which Ochanya was hospitalised for two months until her untimely death.

They let him go

It leaves one baffled given the medical history of Ochanya that the Medical Centre in Makurdi would ineptly conclude that Ochanya died of natural causes and the Police Forensic Laboratory reached another conclusion that she died of diseases that were related to sexual abuse.

It is unfortunate that Justice Augustine Ityonyiman of the Benue State High Court decided to err on the side of caution, questioning the preponderance of evidence, including video evidence of the deceased narrating her ordeal, even as the prosecution bungled the criminal case that he acquitted Andrew Ogbuja of raping and causing the death of Ochanya Ogbanje.

They got her here

At the Federal High Court in Makurdi, Felicia Ogbuja, the aunt faced another charge of negligence leading to the rape and the death of Miss Ochanya Ogbanje, brought by The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) before Justice Mobolaji Olajuwon.

The case was made that Felicia had knowledge of the fact that Ochanya was being sexually abused by her husband and her son, after first being informed by her daughter Winifred and then went on to threaten Ochanya with eviction if the girl mentioned her ordeal to anyone, after which she impeded and obstructed NAPTIP from gathering information from her daughter after the cause of Ochanya’s ailment was determined when admitted in the hospital.

Her omission to perform

As a consequence, Felicia neither challenged nor controverted the presented evidence, she was left culpable and if not an accessory to child sexual rape that consequently resulted in the death of a ward under the care of her family. Hence, she was found guilty as charged contrary to Section 314 of the Criminal Code Act in Nigeria.

When the cause of death is an omission to observe or perform a duty, the period is reckoned inclusive of the day on which the omission ceased.

When the cause of death is in part an unlawful act, and in part an omission to observe or perform a duty, the period is reckoned inclusive of the day on which the last unlawful act was done or the day on which the omission ceased, whichever is the later. https://jurist.ng/criminal_code_act/sec-314

The subsections shown above, indicate the death of Miss Ochanya Ogbanje was caused in part by the unlawful act of sexual assault allegedly perpetrated by both her uncle and her cousin, for which no one has yet been held duly accountable. Her death was also caused in part by the omission to observe when informed by her daughter that her ward was being abused by both her husband and her son and her decision not to perform a duty of care and protection on her ward once Felicia came into the knowledge of the child sexual abuse.

Negligence is a crime

Knowing she had another girl in the home, her own daughter, one would have expected her to offer a modicum of motherly protection to the girl living in her family home, to whom she might not have been a blood relation, but had a pertinent relationship with the responsibility and authority to do something, but she exacerbated the harm, for which there had to be consequence and NAPTIP should be commended for pursuing the case to a conclusion, viewing the victim as trafficked for sexual purposes, since the responsible adults did not intervene.

Child sexual abuse is too much a taboo subject in Nigeria, too many of us bear scars of child sexual abuse not pursued to fully prosecute perpetrators and obtain justice for the victims. Sadly, responsible adults in the environment where it occurs, rather than address the matter would opt for a cover-up giving license to predators to continue their abuse of minors.

Whilst this case of Ochanya Ogbanje might seem a miscarriage of justice as the alleged perpetrators have not been held accountable for sexual abuse and her consequent death, the other adult who turned a blind eye to the abuse and allowed it to continue with the victim so totally terrified of the threat of eviction means we cannot be bystanders in the knowledge of child sexual abuse, regardless of who is involved, and in this case, it was her husband and her son that she tried to protect from being held accountable of their criminality, and in doing so, she committed a crime of negligence to her duty of care leading to the death of a child in her care.

What good conduct?

I am so annoyed that people came to testify to the good conduct of Felicia Ogbuja, for what good conduct is there when you know a child is being sexually abused under your roof and you threaten the child rather than challenge your husband and your son? What leniency should be afforded to someone who prevented investigators from ascertaining the truth of the ordeal of Ochanya as first indicated to her by her own daughter before she moved to silence Ochanya?

That the witnesses would testify that Felicia Ogbuja had no record of previous convictions is beyond the pale, for child endangerment should never be mitigated on no previous offences, it is the ultimate duty of responsibility in which she totally failed, resulting in death, under her care. Does she have to be given another opportunity to let a child be abused by her husband and her son?

We need to dispense with the fallacy of Christianity as a mitigating factor of good conduct, much less, the membership of church societies says nothing about integrity, honour, responsibility, or character. Felicia Ogbuja was by all terms just as manifestly evil to Ochanya Ogbanje as her husband and her son, the judge saw through that and determined a custodial sentence was the least she could do.

Some justice for Ochanya

The judge did right in sentencing her to five months imprisonment without the option of a fine, if it is appealed, I would hope any other court would give more consideration to the victim, for her negligence resulted in the death of an innocent child. I do not care for the ornate marble grave that adorns the place of her internment. Ochanya Ogbanje as a child should have reasonably expected the care and the protection of the Ogbujas, but they preyed on her and wasted her with the violation of her person, her personhood, her body, her dignity, her childhood, and her life; for that, there can be no mitigation, it is unforgivable.

If Andrew Ogbuja cannot be retried, he should never be allowed to work with minors as a precautionary safeguarding measure, because he is a sexual predator as witnessed by his daughter.

Whenever Victor Ogbuja is apprehended, I hope he faces the full wrath of the law with no leniency. To Winifred Ogbuja who might just be the only redeeming feature of this family, I hope you find a bigger voice to prevent injustice when witnessed, regardless of who is involved.

There is no doubt that your father, your mother, and your brother set the worst examples anyone could view in a family unit. May good fortune find you, for you did what you could to save Ochanya Ogbanje, even if it was not enough.

The UK: 50 Years since it was Against The Law - Consensual Homosexuality

Sometime ago

50 years ago, today, Sexual Offences Act 1967 received royal assent, bringing into law the decriminalisation of homosexual acts between men in private, as long as they had attained the age of 21.

I was born at a time of interesting changes in society when the worst form of abuse you could throw at anyone was the phrase, “You’re a bugger.” It carried the weight of disdain, disgust, condemnation and disgrace, there was no particular understanding of homosexuality apart from misconceptions that fed the idea they were acting against the law of nature, they were evil, they were paedophiles and possibly worse.

Yet, it was rarely the case that to that point in time, people who found themselves to be bequeathed with the burden of homosexuality were inclined to be anything but normal law-abiding human beings. Only that the law through moralisation and sententiousness or just the need to find those to persecute criminalised the nature of people who happened to be different.

Against the law

13 years before this, Alan Turing died of cyanide poisoning having been persecuted by the system for his sexuality, one of the pioneering brains of the computing age and to whom some of the successes to breaking the Nazi Germany encryption codes presaging the end of WWII is attributed. His profile saved him from jail, but it did not save him from the system that literally ruined him.

However, in all this, I celebrate three men, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Peter Wildeblood and Michael Pitt-Rivers who were charged and convicted in 1954 for conspiracy to incite certain male persons to commit serious offences with male persons" (or "buggery"), for which they went to jail.

Despite the sensationalism of what became known as the Montagu Trial, Lord Montagu admitted to being bisexual and Peter Wildeblood was first to publicly admit his homosexuality. The police were involved in a widespread clampdown on homosexuality even acting as agent provocateurs to entrap unsuspecting homosexuals for a prosecution that there were at least 1,000 men sent to prison yearly for being homosexual in the 1950s.

Against bad law

The way the prosecution and trial was conducted led to an inquiry which submitted the Wolfenden Report in 1967 suggesting consensual homosexual acts between adults be decriminalised. 14 out of 15 members of this inquiry agreed to this.

Peter Wildeblood wrote about the trial in his book, Against The Law: The Classic Account of a Homosexual in 1950s Britain, which was adapted for television and shown last night. [BBC Two]

Finding myself different

I began to realise my own same sex attraction from around the age of 7, just about the time that I had my first sexual encounter with a much older girl who was twice my age. I did not know or understand what happened between us, but I know I was taken into the toilet, told to pull down my shorts and instructed to put my thing in her thing.

How that impacted my sense of sexuality, I would never know, but in that singular event, I lost my innocence and became sexualised. In the following years up to the time I was 10, I suppose male servants seeking a sexual outlet found easy prey in me, to which I somewhat acquiesced, none the wiser about what it meant.

In fear and loathing

Through secondary boarding school, there was a fondle, some frottage and consequently lots of fellatio with one friend who assuredly was not homosexual. In fact, I met no homosexuals in any sense in school, or at least never knew of any until I saw some of my schoolmates in the UK.

By my late teens, I was in great conflict between understanding my sexuality and embracing spirituality, I could never square the situation of being naturally attracted to men and yet feeling condemned for what I did not choose as a matter of cause or course.

Meanwhile, I found amenable and willing partners for sexual expression into my twenties. On one occasion, we were caught in the act and literally blackmailed into complying with some norms. At the eve of my departure from Nigeria, one such liaison had revealed the tryst to another party and they both schemed to blackmail me, I refused to budge, told them to do their worst as I was also about to leave Nigeria.

The journey to accepting myself

By then, I had become aware that there were much more people like me, even if I did not know where to meet them. Back in the UK, I sought out men like me, I found a bar in the West-End called the Brief Encounter, now defunct, and from the moment I stepped into the bar, I began to the journey to the acceptance of who I was.

There were still many battles to fight for being homosexual in 1990, the police still found opportunity to harass, coming out had grave consequences for life and well-being, Justin Fashanu had just come out as gay and there was a great backlash, gays were being queer-bashed without finding any recourse or redress, discrimination was tolerated everywhere against homosexuals with homophobia expressed from politics to pulpit without sanction, we existed in an underclass of secrecy finding community in minority and the persecuted.

We were also in the first decade of the AIDS epidemic, I watched friends and acquaintances grab each day as it came, them wasting away until they expired. It was scary, then there was Section 28 enacted in 1988, which stated that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship." That’s Russia today and worse.

We’ve come a long way

Within this period, I found companionship and love, great tolerance and understand at work where my managers protected me from abuse from colleagues and much else. Many never understood homosexuality but accepted we existed and respected us for who we were. Our sexuality and sexual preferences do not define us, we are first human beings and there is much to us than labels.

In the West, in 50 years, we have come a long way, equality is the norm, discrimination is condemned, expression is free, gay marriage is legal in many countries, we’ve had gay heads of government in Iceland and Belgium, and currently in Luxembourg, Ireland and Serbia, coming out is not such a big deal anymore.

The spectre of AIDS that strafed the gay community is not so much the sentence of death it was some 20 or 30 years ago, because of new treatments that limit the debilitating effects of HIV.

Many battles remain

Yet, there is much to do for gay minorities, to tackle sexuality and status stigma, to address homophobic laws gaining traction in other countries where gays are abused, persecuted, prosecuted and murdered, just for being who they are.

Many are caught in that morass of being against the law – of nature to some when that is what they naturally are. Homosexuality is not a mental disorder, it is part of our humanity and human nature, but the journey to accepting, tolerating and respecting our varied and diverse humanity is still a long one.

Today, I must celebrate that where I live, my homosexuality is not against the law.

British Airways must prosecute BAF 2276 emergency rule breakers

It is criminal

When I read of the criticism of passengers by the pilot of the British Airways Flight 2276 that caught fire just before take-off in Las Vegas, I pondered about the attachment of people to things.

This was a situation where everyone was in grave danger, a fully fuel laden flight with one of the engines on fire, one should not contemplate the consequence if they were not able to evacuate saving 172 souls.

Yet, in the emergency as observed in the picture that accompanied the news story, there is at least two passengers running from the flight with their bulky hand luggage.

What informs this attachment?

Their getting their so precious goods could have been the difference between life and death and there are too many stories through our humanity where the attachment to things has meant the end of all things for that person and a story of regret told by others.

Part of the aircraft safety instructions suggests, maybe advices, but should command that when an evacuation emergency is in process, we should abandon all whilst ladies take off their heeled shoes and make for the emergency exit in an orderly fashion.

Putting goods in or taking goods out of the overhead bins in an aircraft is rarely the smoothest activity. Even in premium class, the space is tight, people can hardly pass by when one is either loading or unloading the overhead bins. In an emergency, accessing the overhead bins is not only an impediment to safe evacuation, it presents a grave risk to passengers and crew alike.

How we endanger others

Only last week I was doing the mandatory health and safety course at work and I noticed that I risked prosecution if I ignore alarms for fire drills or real emergencies. The fire warden usually leaves the floor or building last, it means they are under obligation to ensure everyone has vacated the building or they and the organisation can be deemed negligent.

I think the same rule applies to disembarking an aircraft during an emergency, just as it is the age-old rule that the captain is the last to leave a ship in distress.

Yet, there is a psyche of acquisitive hedonism that seems to possess the mind of some who regardless of how their life is endangered cannot be separated from their things and I fear that things will be the end of them.

A prosecutory deterrent is necessary

However, the need for a lesson of deterrence must not be missed, the said people who ignored the basic safety rule by picking up their hand luggage must be sought after, prosecuted and have heavy penalties imposed on them. It might not moderate their behaviour to things, but it must signal a complete intolerance of people who selfishly impede an emergency evacuation exercise foolishly endangering themselves and most especially and unreasonably the lives of others.

Yes, they got away with their lives and their precious things, but this must never be the end of the matter and I hope it isn’t. They were lucky but they took unacceptable chances that could have led to grievous consequences and possible loss of life. I would hate to have people like this on my flight, anyone should.

If you feel you are boarding a plane with your most precious possessions and I think everyone is, it is our lives most of all, get insurance for your goods at the very least. If in an emergency we are to evacuate an aircraft leaving our things, with life all things lost can after a temporary setback be regained, a life lost, is a life lost, hopefully without the tag of foolishness.

South Africa: How to Get Away With Murder - Violence Against Women continues

Never forget the issue – It is Violence Against Women [UN]

Reeva Steenkamp and Anni Dewani - names of women, real people who by reason of the cases brought against their partners have been relegated to the background.

The perception is that, based on the case pursued by the prosecution against Oscar Pistorius and Shrien Dewani, these men have apparently walked off lightly from their involvement in the deaths of girlfriend and wife.

Reeva was the unfortunate victim of a killing, whether it was murder or homicide is up for discussion, Anni was the victim of a car-jacking murder in an alleged murder-for-hire scheme procured on her honeymoon by her husband. The fact is, two women are dead.

Not a crime until there is a victim

That Oscar was an irresponsible gun-nut prone to fits of rage was not in dispute and eventually we heard that Shrien was a closet hard-core homosexual who engaged in kinky sexual activity. None of this is by any means criminal, we have the right to pursue hobbies and fantasies to the limit as long as no one else comes to harm in the pursuit of such activities.

Where one this departs from the ordinary is when a man for whatever reason is terrified into thinking there is an intruder in his home and he fires 4 shots into an enclosed place unaware of who might be in there. In a cartoon, whoever might have been in the enclosed place will walk out as if the shots were just a shower of confetti, in real life, the consequence is grave, the person died, having been hit by three shots.

Where the prosecution failed

It was left to the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that this act was intentional, failing that, at least prove irresponsibility, it failed and so Oscar Pistorius literally got a slap on the wrist for gun-toting wrist action that led to the death of an innocent woman who had the misfortune of being his girlfriend.

One cannot fault the case law from the perspective of the judge, it had on the balance of probabilities with a wily lawyer gotten the man off the hook for a more serious crime. However, the state has won the right to appeal the sentencing, we just have to watch this space for the new exegesis of the Latin descriptions of criminally causing the death of another.

A soap opera like a thriller

With hindsight, having learnt of the secret life of Shrien Dewani in England, Anni Hindocha of Sweden should never have been in any kind of matrimony with her husband.

One can assume that both were caught in the strictures of being third-culture kids; parents and relations from the Indian subcontinent, they being products of English and Swedish societies having to respect traditions.

It is probably why Shrien was in the closet living a double life of lascivious homosexual and eligible bachelor, a combustible mix of circumstances with Anni as the unfortunate collateral damage.

Where the prosecution failed again

According to the prosecution, having procured a false matrimony, the pull of the other life presented Shrien with situation that having fulfilled the cultural requirements demanded of him in the marriage ceremony now could terminate a union that should not proceed beyond the honeymoon.

Anni and Shrien made from South Africa for their honeymoon and there she was killed by people her husband presumably had interesting contacts with before the carjacking. Those people were prosecuted and jailed as Shrien returned to the UK and progressively played a grieving husband, a nervous wreck, an accused, a challenger to an extradition that lasted three years, an extradition to South Africa to face justice and now a free man.

Until proven broke, it seems

We are none the wiser about how the stories the other murder told against Shrien might have come about, the prosecution again having failed to raise its argument above the bar necessary to make Shrien face the charge of murder or at least the conspiracy to commit murder.

There are two immutable facts, the women are dead and the case law to test the allegations against boyfriend and husband who were lawyered up to well that it gives life to that thing that Alan Dershowitz once said on television. "Everyone is innocent until proven broke."

Can these failings continue?

More disturbingly is whether the prosecution has the nous, skill, empathy and conviction to make a convincing case against well-heeled men who purportedly have been involved in the deaths of their partners.

One cannot really put a finger on where it has gone completely awry, but 2014 cannot be said to have advanced the movement to stop Violence Against Women with these two high-profile cases in South Africa.

Though the prosecution will have a second bite of the cherry in revisiting the judgement against Oscar Pistorius, I do not think anyone is holding their breath about a radically different outcome.

In the case of Shrien Dewani, it is unlikely anyone would step forward with a hand in marriage lest they meet a similar fate, but having being conveniently outed, he might well get on with openly being a homosexual until some twist of fate allows for Anni Dewani to get some form of justice and her family some form of closure.

In both cases, I am saddened, Violence Against Women remains an everyday reality and it is unlikely victims of such violence will get a fair shake of the law in their favour.

C'est la vie.

Further Reading

Violence Against Women – Wikipedia

Thought Picnic: Tolerating diversity on the streets of our humanity

Death on our streets

“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Karl Marx [Wikipedia]

One fateful day in May 2013, a young 25-year old father of one who had served his country in the treacherous battlefields of Afghanistan and returned unscathed was butchered on the streets of London, his name was Lee Rigby.

The scene of that murder, macabre, gruesome and beyond belief was the handiwork of Michael Olumide Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Oluwatobi Adebowale, 22, both black, British and of Nigerian descent.

Just like me

Nigerian descent by reason of both their middle names and surnames which are of Yoruba origin, very much like mine are, we are Third Culture Kids.

“A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents' culture. The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into the TCK's life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.” [Wikipedia]

That is probably where the similarity ends, beyond having Christian names this tale takes a turn for the worse.

Drugged by religion

They took religion, became religious and adopted an outlook to life and circumstances that seem to give cause to what they presumed was their oppressed existence – their fellow Muslims were suffering around the world; that appeared to justify their heartless act – to take an innocent human being off the street and butcher him like a dog and that informed their soulless utterances – expressing no empathy, care or remorse for the evil acts wrought by their hands.

They were opiated by religion that nothing they did made sense and whatever made sense to them was to any other human being manifestly evil, incomprehensibly beyond words and lacking in humanity that they had become demons in human skin.

Blinded by belief

They represented the extremes of how religion can blind people to the community, communion and commonality of our humanity with all its differences and diversity. The tendency to feel one has right by some deity or some instruction to lose perspective of the fundamental human rights of another and thereby deprive them of their freedom, their life, their expression and their pursuit of happiness.

As we battle with our conscience we sometimes lose consciousness of the fact that regardless of what we believe or what we are persuaded of, we may not understand the world of others besides ourselves, but as fellow human beings they have a right to live, survive and thrive in the world we all share – free of persecution, prosecution and execution - it is called tolerance.

Harm no one

The greater lesson here is not so much about heritage, culture or religion, but the need to recognise within ourselves our Good Samaritan humanity not to harm others because of our persuasion, omission, commission, inclination, indifference, silence or utterance.

Examples of which is fearfully expressed in the Boko Haram menace in Nigeria where children and people are massacred, and a government continually stand clueless of ability, purpose, resolve or empathy apart from the wringing of hands, the miniskirt ban in Uganda, the new homophobic laws of Nigeria and Uganda along with the religious and cultural expression that underpins such inclinations.

Free our streets from offence

As we all freely walk the streets and justice is served by taking extremists off our streets, we must be careful not to hound off the streets others whose only offence to us is to be different, diverse and divergent from what is our norm but not their norm.

Back to England, may Lee Rigby rest in peace, his family, relations and friends find some closure and strength in the fond memories of that innocent man and that we all learn that religious fanaticism can lead to ruinous consequences for both believer to the wider society. Our humanity must always inform, temper and moderate our beliefs, not the other way round.

Nigeria: Those Odious Protests

Protest for the right

In any thriving democracy, the right to assemble and the right to protest should be inalienable and protected by the constitution and the law.

However, there has been a rather worrisome development amongst Nigerians in the exercise of these rights that it is odious, repugnant, reprehensible and beneath contempt.

Some recent events do call for a discussion on why people gather to protest in support of manifestly corrupt, evil, deplorable, heinous and shameful situations or people.

As they gathered

Last year, within the clamour with regards to the nasty gang-rape of a lady at Abia State University, we had the governor, the university and even the police suggested no such criminal activity happened and to compound the matter, certain students and members of the public rallied in support of the government line that the report of the was to besmirch the good name of the state instigated by detractors.

In London, a few months ago when James Ibori the kleptomaniac ex-governor of Delta State entered a plea of guilty to charges of money laundering, people trooped out as supporters and well-wishers suggesting he had suffered an injustice despite the fact that their champion had conceded his guilt.

At his sentencing a few weeks ago, more even came out to support him, praise him and had the effrontery to ask the President to consider a total pardon for his crimes.

Protesting for the wrong

Just a few weeks ago, at the trial of a prominent traditional ruler for the rape of young lady, his counsel led the most egregious cross-examination that at best outraged public decency and in my view demanded serious censure when he asked the rape victim to expose in open court the bruising she might have suffered as a result of her alleged rape.

The trial was adjourned and on its assumption recently, some people came out to protest in support of the alleged rapist accusing the government of bias intimidation and thereby conflating the separation of powers that ensures the independence of the judiciary even if the prosecutor in the name of the people is in the pay of the state.

An angle worth exploring

The government of Osun State has decided to act to pursue and prosecute the protesters on the premise that they engaged children who were supposed to be in school into an enterprise that was a bad example in general and by conscripting them to carrying placards on a matter sub-judice, they had contemned the course of justice.

Obviously, everyone has a right to protest according to their consciences or in relation to how they have been persuaded either by sentiment or corrupt inducement, where they crossed the line was when they dragged minors into their cause – this might well be innocently or to make up the numbers – either way, the government can make a strong case from the angle of the Child Rights Act which they intend to invoke in pursuing the adults involved in the protest.

Walk, stand and sit right

However, we all know that the reason for this intended prosecution is to deal with the odium of protesting in support of wrongful causes that are not promotion of rights, truth, justice, fairness, good, humanity and honesty.

While it is a stretch, we need to begin to realise that there is consequence and retribution for what the Book of Psalms 1:1 says quite completely for walking in the counsel of the ungodly, standing in the path of the sinners or sitting in the seat of the scornful.

There is just cause and that cause must be seen to the end, our reaction to the celebration of the unseemly will determine where we have reached in progress and civility as a people.

Thought Picnic: FGM - On my use of "Clitoral Disgust"

Courtesy of UNIVERSAL Health: Female Genital Mutilation in Africa

Why the title?

Soon after publishing my blog about FGM in Nigeria, I entered into discussion about the title I had given the blog with the view that I review the construct and possibly the wording.

FGM in Nigeria: Raze the Abattoirs of Clitoral Disgust

I am sure most of us know what Female Genital Mutilation is, it is also called Female Circumcision and it is evident what the practice entails; the mutilation of female sexual organs.

In coming up with the title, I could have used one of seven easily mentionable names of the object but I chose an adjective which contextually was already attributive and followed that with the noun form rather than the verb form of Disgust to create an adjectival phrase.

This in my view captured the fact that butchering exercise redolent of abattoirs was in traditional disgust of the object that was only mentioned in my blog within the types of FGM that WHO indicated.

Between abattoir and surgery

The use of the word abattoirs cannot be faulted if one views the implements used in this exercise which are by no means surgical by any stretch of the imagination and primitive in the extreme. The victims of FGM do not have the luxury of anaesthesia when then these caveman procedures are done apart from physical restraint and it is unlikely that the practitioners are trained to handle emergencies if they do occur.

If we can move beyond the title which at worst should be forgiven for taking artistic licence and read the story, it is of a girl, Joy Youmgbo who went to visit her grandmother for Christmas, she was mutilated, suffered great agony for days and died a horrific painful death that medical records cited as a result of post-circumcision haemorrhage.

Face up!

We would not have heard of this criminality – and I say criminality because no such operations as cutting the flesh in tender areas, no matter the traditional expertise should ever be conducted outside hospitals, in this day and age – if the other sister had not run away from home in the fear that the same fate might befall her.

Now, this topic is controversial and there are those for and against FGM, in my view, if the practise cannot be stopped, then the theatre of that practice must change.

If FGM must occur then it should only be in hospitals under strict medical supervision all the parties involved having undergone essential counselling and therapy before the decision to cut is made.

In the end, I stand by the title I chose, it in my view conveys the complete context of the blog that follows and the sooner we called a spade, a spade, we can start digging.

Thank you.

Reference

UNIVERSAL Health: Female Genital Mutilation in Africa

FGM in Nigeria: Raze the Abattoirs of Clitoral Disgust

Note: On my decision to retain the blog title see opinion.

This discreditable practice

This is 2012 and I find myself writing about acts in parts of the world that belong in a museum of antiquity long before mediaeval times as types of torture that defeminise women in a manifestly atrocious cultural or traditional rite.

Female Genital Mutilation [1] (FGM) despite the international activism against it is still rife and it does take lives without consequences for the perpetrators who do it still with impunity in their quest to hold on to their Neanderthal customs.

In this case, the news [2] in Nigeria is of a 17-year old girl who fled her family home and has been declared missing having witnessed the painful and agonising death over days of her younger sister who was grievously mutilated on January the 15^th 2012.

Embracing shabby traditions

This reprehensibly irresponsible act was coordinated by her grandmother who corralled the family into participating in this rite of torture and enduring grievous bodily harm and what is almost unbelievable about this is the parties involved cannot be so matured in age to be oblivious of modern thinking.

The girls lived in Lagos, a sprawling metropolis and had returned to their homestead for the Christmas holidays in Ijaw-land, which happens to be the place from which our current highly educated, PhD holding President hails. Though from research, this practice is not restricted to that area, it is quite pervasive and it cuts a swathe through the whole south of West-Africa and parts of Chad arcing up through Sudan and Egypt to the north and through Ethiopia and Somalia to the east and horn of Africa where the prevalence [3] is up to 95% like a plague.

Types of FGM

The WHO identifies four types of Female Genital Mutilation [1] which intensify in the incredibly macabre for each more intrusive act that could involve cauterisation; it is almost unreadable for the horror of the exercise.

Type I: removal of the clitoral hood, the skin around the clitoris, with or without partial or complete removal of the clitoris;

Type II: removal of the clitoris with partial or complete removal of the labia minora;

Type III: removal of all or part of the labia minora and labia majora, and the stitching of a seal across the vagina, leaving a small opening for the passage of urine and menstrual blood (infibulation);

Type IV: other miscellaneous acts, including cauterization of the clitoris, cutting of the vagina (gishiri cutting), and introducing corrosive substances into the vagina to tighten it.

Abattoirs of clitoral disgust

These are at best radical surgery, if tradition or custom and in some cases conflated with religion so dictates that this practice is essential, important and of the highest priority, they must be conducted under strict medical conditions probably under general anaesthetic and these village abattoirs of clitoral disgust must be razed.

The barbarity of this exercise is in the fact that seeming knowledgeable people aware of hygienic needs for surgical practice engage in the use of crude implements and unschooled hands hoping to be vindicated by long held traditions and the evidence of those who barely survived the ordeal.

It might be difficult to criminalise FGM in the many societies that practise it but all the charlatans who engage in the mutilation of genitalia outside of accredited modern medical facilities most be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and made a public example of.

Much as one will prefer that this practice be totally outlawed and completely stopped, if that is not possible, then this event must only occur in a hospital under professional supervision after extensive counselling of all parties involved.

This was murder

However, back to the case in Nigeria, the news story says the victim “suffered severe excruciating pains for days after the mutilation of her genital before her death.”

It is very likely that after the mutilation she suffered severe bleeding and the perpetrators waited too long before they took her to hospital, by which time little could be done to save her life and that medical reports indicated she died of a “Post Circumcision haemorrhage.”

She basically bled to death.

Now, one can understand the sadness that accompanies the loss of a child, a grandchild, a sister and being back at the homestead, a close relation. It would appear that death did not remove the blinkers of absurd traditions from the perpetrators that they were ready to butcher the elder sister.

One cannot put it beyond these evil people that they were afraid that their heinous acts will be exposed that they could have schemed to sacrifice two young girls on the altar of tradition in order to cover their criminal enterprise – that calls for an intervention, it is an emergency that calls for justice to be expedited so that Joy Youmgbo would not have died in vain.

Arrest, indict, prosecute

The medical evidence is there, she died of a Post-Circumcision haemorrhage, it is now for the police to go after the grandmother and all her accomplices and pursue at the minimum a charge of manslaughter against all these people.

We have to come to a point in our society where no human being stands the risk of being sacrificed with impunity and with no consequence on the altar of custom, tradition, practice, creed or any belief system and civil society is able to protect the absoluteness of the right to life and happiness without anyone being subjected to the unpalatable for the preservation of the censurably odious.

If anything, the untimely and avoidable death of Joy Youmgbo must lead to greater agitation to stop the practice of FGM in Nigeria, one death is already one too many. I can only hope that Patricia Youmgbo finds succour for her pain of loss and protection from what those demons did to her sister.

STOP FGM NOW!

Sources

[1] Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Wikipedia

[2] Girl, 17 flees home over forced circumcision | Premium Times Nigeria

[3] Prevalence of female genital mutilation by country, Wkipedia

Always have your condoms at the ready

HIV as weapon

The case of the German singer Nadja Benaissa being prosecuted [1] for grievous bodily harm and attempted bodily harm in having unprotected sex with partners whilst knowing she was HIV positive makes interesting and controversial reading.

There are various camps pitched between considering her acts criminal to properly apportioning responsibility in relation to sexual liaisons between infected and uninfected partners.

For the case of the man who allegedly became infected through having sex with her, I am beginning to wonder if the onus of proof should not be extended to ascertain the particular strains of the virus because it does not appear to be conclusively proven that she infected him, rather the assumption has been made of her culpability without addressing the possible promiscuity of the partner.

Abdication of personal responsibility

My greater concern about these prosecutions comes from that of responsibility, each partner in a sexual liaison should be in charge of securing their personal protection when indulging in a sexual act.

I find it reprehensible that people would abdicate that responsibility and then seek to blame others for their personal irresponsibility when things go wrong.

In the passion of the moment or conversely in the moment of passion, if people can assume without verification that a partner is not infected with the virus and then engage in unsafe sex, the consequences are dire and the results can be life changing; it might be a consideration for a female to wear a femidom but surely anyone who likes wick-dipping should for all intents and purposes have condoms in their pockets.

Now, for a more clinical approach the partners can be as pragmatic as to obtain saliva test swabs from the local chemists and make a crude determination of status before copulation, but how many do have the presence of mind to do that?

The assumed invincibility of being active

There is a stigma attached to having the HIV virus and not everyone has reached the point where honesty about status is as forthcoming as the Karma Sutra positions they might persuade each other to take.

In another article I read earlier this week [2] with the graphic detail of homosexual sex, what was interesting was the inclination for the penetrative partner to assume that they are at lower risk of infection than the partner who receives the penetration.

The other matter of condom aversion with heterosexuals and homosexuals alike does not seem to be addressed too, this following on from the hubris of being the active partner and thence the almost invincible partner.

Another issue about sexually transmitted diseases is that the more common infections like chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes and syphilis makes the HIV negative partner more susceptible to infection but that chronology of events would normally not be forensically proven by the time the vindictiveness of prosecution and persecution takes hold.

Preventative measures of dispute

In another set of circumstances there is the matter of circumcision being preventative [3] of infection along with the recently announced microbicide gel [4] which is purported to prevent the transmission of the virus to women.

I have my concerns about the risks involved in conducting these tests in South Africa that sacrificed the health and safety of over 10% of the subjects to arrive at the conclusions and the effectiveness thereof is quite in the lower percentiles of success.

Obviously, the other question about this gel is whether when applied by an infected female partner it prevents the male partner from contracting the disease, they all do not constitute a panacea for risk.

None is so innocent or so wronged

In conclusion, I believe the responsibility must be shared; each person should take the responsibility for their sexual health and wellbeing seriously and personally without succumbing to the delirium of passion.

If a clear decision is made not to engage in unsafe sex as a matter of course and where that does not happen the question of trust is properly verified medically these atrocious persecutions should never happen.

Where one partner can play victim whilst visiting the full force on the law on the other when during the sexual event all common-sense had been thrown out of the window, this becomes unsafe from a justice and fairness perspective and though prosecution might exclude one person from the public sexual pool, I have my doubts that it serves as a deterrent to people from engaging in risky behaviour and it could well prevent people from seeking out the very truth about their status whilst engaging in promiscuously enjoyable behaviour.

In a more dispassionate application of the law, the wronged might well be excluded from the sexual pool by making it public knowledge that they also have become a public sexual risk just as much as the original culprit in the case. The foolishness on the part of the assumed victim should not be excused just as the prosecution for the alleged "crime" is being pursued with questionable vigour.

Sources

[1] 'HIV is no longer an epidemic. But the stigma is' - Health News, Health & Families - The Independent

[2] HIV/AIDS Resource Center for Gay Men: Subconscious Death-Wish of a Gifted, Young Black Man - The Body

[3] Nigerians Talk | What We Are Reading: What’s Good For The Goose…

[4] Microbicide gel: Reduced risk of HIV and herpes infections in women, study shows