Why Stereotype Rape Victims? The Lessons From Sharon's Story -By Ogungbile Emmanuel Oludotun

Some years ago, Sharon was not the brightest girl in my class. She was beautiful and quite bewitching to behold that all the hypersexual boys in my school will want her in their crookery beds. She was not a shrinking violet nor was she a backslapper. One thing that bowled over our minds was that alluring Sharon was also well admired by all our male teachers, howbeit they knew she had the dull apprehension to academics and extracurricular activities. Her approach to studies was not stimulating or appealing. I wouldn’t want to also deny that Sharon Lawson drives and turned us all on with her amorous body, that we wouldn’t know how to control our illusions. It compelled us to virtually do everything for her, particularly her class works and homeworks respectively.

If I educe quite well, we just got promoted to the senior class 3 when this heartbreaking and despairing occurrence happened to Sharon. The school concluded the daily academic activities that day when Sharon picked up her bags, waved a few of her friends before she sauntered to her street alone, maybe just as usual. However, as Sharon wouldn’t count some sixty steps away from the school building, just suddenly she was bushwhacked from nowhere by some unkempt miscreants that threatened to kill her even before they unfurled the intention of savouring from her physical pleasure. She narrated how she firstly refused their offer of a ‘voluntary sexual assault’ as she wouldn’t yield. Then she was forced to lay bare on the ground in the veranda of a fallow building near an old manufacturing company. Sharon depicted how she cried and how each of the rapist salivated from her sexual conquest. Fate held her that day, as she could rarely think of what to do. No doubt, the rapists’ power subdued hers, as she couldn’t cry so loud, that her mouth was even sealed and tied with rags, same as her hands, yet they left her legs alone for easy passage of their illegitimate act. The girl then gave up her body to each of the three in indescribable pains as her urge to resist fled the scene in tonic immobility.

Subsequently, after these perpetrators of evils had ravaged her body in the best of their deranged brains. They left her weeping in pool of blood, leaving her to probably die unnoticed at the spot of her rape. However, Sharon wouldn’t die, as she’s a strong girl with the insisting tenacity anyone could desire. Sharon managed and limped off from the scene, she ambled to her house before her health status could finally deteriorate. Worse enough, little did she know that the news of her rape had spread its wings of defamation so wide around the walls of her community and the school that day. Everyone from the corners of her street to the corner of her next street surmised different aspersions and allotted varying rumours about the incident that they didn’t witness themselves. You might want to ask these questions? Who witnessed the rape? Who dispatched it to the public? Was it the rapist themselves or the devil himself who had the time to make things worse? It’s hard to believe that from that they onward, Sharon was the talk of the town, from the jaws of her classmates to the jaws of her friends, to the jaws of neighbours, to parents, to religious leaders. Her gossips was transmitted like an on-air radio programme, tarnishing her image. Some did whispered that she was a useless girl who finds joy in spreading legs to anyone of her choice, some said why couldn’t she shout if she wasn’t interested in the affair, others ignorantly concluded that the assault served her irresponsible self right. You’ll wouldn’t want to listen to the bad banters and insult she received during those period pain.

Consequently, as Sharon couldn’t bear the agony of shame and discrimination anymore, she lost her cohesiveness, she lost the strength to bear the aspersions that they daily threw at her. Her parents were not really supportive to give her the best of encouragement. Definitely her pains became the positional one, she couldn’t share to anyone, even the trusted one still lacked a little fidelity. Wherefore, on the silent morning of 2017 Christmas Eve, Sharon succumbed to the pressures and sniffed it, in almost a natural death. No one could really predict If it was a suicide or a natural occurrence that compelled, and definately overwhelmed her.

In the mood of this moment, it pains me each time I remember how the promising girl died like that, knowing she died because she was suffered from the trauma of the assault, the neglect from her parents, gossips from the neighbors and other experiences we cannot say.

Dear readers, recovering from sexual assault takes time, and the healing process can be painful. Regardless of age or gender, the impact of sexual violence goes far beyond any physical injuries. The trauma of being raped or sexually assaulted can be shattering, leaving the victim scared, ashamed, and alone or plagued by nightmares, flashbacks, and other unpleasant memories. The world doesn’t feel like a safe place anymore. You no longer trust others. You don’t even trust yourself. Victims might question their judgment, their self-worth, and even their sanity. They might even blame themselves for what happened or believe that you’re “dirty” or “damaged goods.” Hence, if you know any victim of assault around your neighborhood, it’s our imperative duty to be of assistance, get closer with them, show them they are still consequential to the society, and help them heal, maximising their unused potential. A soul is dying today, save one.

Ogungbile Emmanuel Oludotun