Found this on The Nation, more women are sharing their rape stories. Keeping quiet should never be an option when raped because by keeping quiet, you will make other women victims. Please Speak Up. Read this lady's story below...
Mrs. Abidemi Ronke Ekanem who was assaulted as a growing child experienced brutal rape at the tender age of 19 in the year 2001. Thirteen years after, now 32 years old and married, she is still full of fury. Her anger stems from the brutality and frequency of rape cases which is not helped by the erroneous societal notions that leave the victims suffering alone in silence. This led her to found a Non-Governmental Organisation which she named End Rape and Sexual Abuse (ERSA).
She recounted her traumatic experience and also highlighted the lasting effects to Joke Kujenya.
It appears she is still battling with her decade-plus inner pain. She blurted out: “No woman deserves to be raped, no matter the circumstances. That is why rapists must not be left off the hook or allowed to go scot-free. While the physical hurts can be mended overtime, it is the inner struggle that people cannot see that is hardest to deal with because it has no set time limit. For all victims of rape, the emotional scars lasts a lifetime.”
Abidemi Ekanem hails from Ijio, Ile-Ife. After completing her secondary school education, she gained admission to the Lagos State University (LASU), Iyana-oba, Lagos to study Law though she was a science student in her secondary school days.
She narrates her story: “At some point after the registration, I realised that my reasons for wanting to study Law at LASU was not viable. I wanted to be an activist. But I felt I could actually be a doctor or another kind of professional. I knew that I caught the activism bug due to my brief participation in the late Moshood Abiola June 12 struggles. So, I went to my dad and pleaded that I was studying Law in LASU for the wrong reasons and begged for a change of course and college. Of course, my dad was unhappy with me. But after much pleading and as his first and only child by my mom to him, he helped me through his friends to get admitted into Adeyemi College of Education (ACE) in Ondo State to study Mathematics which as a course, I loved so much”.
Her period of admission to the Adeyemi College of Education (ACE) coincided with the one year anniversary of a deceased student union activist. The occasion became so violent with gun shots being fired everywhere. As a result, almost all the students had to vacate the campus. Abidemi also left and went back to Lagos. The school was closed till further notice.
Some weeks later, she learnt that the school was to be re-opened. Full of enthusiasm, she promptly left for Ondo the next day. On getting there, she found the campus still under lock and key. However, instead of returning to Lagos, she went to the off-campus hostel of her female friend whom she had been squatting with all along. She said in the hostel which is right across the campus there were other friends with whom she was relating. One of them, she said, is “a very kind-hearted guy, Seun, almost like our blood brother who always ensured all was well with us.”
She narrates her story further: “I was in our hostel one afternoon awaiting the re-opening of our campus when my father sent a letter through a guardian for me to take to a female friend of his who was then the Registrar at the Federal University of Technology (FUTA), Akure, because she was to travel out of the country the next day. My dad, who was a banker then, sent the letter for the fact that he didn’t like my attending a college of education when all of his friends’ children were in the universities across the world. So, he wanted me to change to FUTA because he felt embarrassed when his associates asked where his daughter was schooling. And he was a man given to ardent reading.
“My dad’s instruction was that I must not just drop the letter and run off. He said that the woman would see me and take necessary action as they had discussed and agreed. And prior to that, while in ACE, he
