Rape accusations: Making enquiries and taking precautions is not victim-blaming -By Isa Eneye Mubarak

Isa Eneye Mubarak

Some time ago, some guys were expelled in Bayero University Kano because a girl (who was their former friend) simply accused them of rape while she visited them off campus. She made this known after having an unrelated misunderstanding with the guys. No investigation, no trial, no nothing, the school simply took her words for it. There were several speculations which raised doubts over the authenticity of her story, but the guys were expelled anyway. Whether it did happen or not, we’ll never know.

In as much as rape is very much real and happening, some are just cooked up stories, guilt-trip tales, blackmail, a way to tarnish a man’s reputation or as some form of payback. The society and media will believe any girl who comes out and accuse any guy of rape, because we have the twisted notion that “all men are potential rapists.”

The notion of “innocent until proven guilty” does not apply to accused rapists, apparently. Anyone enquiring to get a better understanding is considered a victim-blamer. It’s sad, yes we do believe her but at the end of the day the law is objective and cannot succumb to feminist sentiment of “choose a side, she was raped, do you believe her or not?”

A girl shared her “rape story” on Twitter and unfortunately she didn’t get the support and pity she expected. Long story short, a girl who has a boyfriend went to spend the night in another guy’s apartment with the supposed agreement that it’ll be platonic.

In her own words “..he started getting all cuddly and I wasn’t comfortable for a number of reasons, so I pushed him away a couple of times. Then he begged and said it would just be cuddling and I LET HIM” and “he started touching me, took off the shorts completely and started giving me oral…” But at the end of the day, she said the guy raped her and even came in her.

She LET HIM cuddled and ALLOWED him to take off her shorts and perform oral sex on her. The whole story is misleading, your NO should be NO from the onset, for her to have allowed oral sex means she indirectly consented already, stop giving mixed signals. The guy however has denied it, whether true or not, the guy’s reputation is now being questioned. This could’ve been prevented, but feminist will say we are “victim-blaming” rather than telling men to simply stop raping women.

They (feminists) came up with “all men are potential rapists.” When a man rapes a woman, everyone with a penis must take responsibility for the act but when a woman flushes a newborn down the drain only that woman takes responsibility. Why?

When a lady is told to dress decently, and not dress provocatively, or should take certain precaution to avoid being raped, she’ll probably take offense from that and you’d be accused of “victim blaming”.

If my mom pleads with me not to take a taxi at night so as to avoid being robbed or killed, is she victim blaming or simply imploring me to practise precaution? When people lock their cars in the parking lot, they do so to keep thieves out and we do not seldom here people cry “no, leave your window open and the car unlocked – thieves must just stop stealing”.

Now, why do we shout “stop victim blaming” when women are told to practice precaution against rape? Robbery is unavoidable but we all try our best to avoid it and tackle it at the same time – we take certain routes and avoid crime hotspots. Why can’t the same be true for rape, because as unavoidable as it is, people should try by all means not to be at risk. Don’t go half naked on the same bed with a man, and then accuse him of rape.

So, ladies avoid being in a circumstance of being a victim, if you don’t trust a guy, don’t visit him. Call it victim-blaming or whatever. Just stay safe and make sure “rape” actually took place before ruining a guy’s reputation. Thank you!

Isa Eneye Mubarak
isamubarak66@yahoo.com