Founder of the Tonia Bruised But Not Broken Rape Survivors Foundation, Anthonia Ojenagbon, narrates to AJIBADE OMAPE how her father’s younger brother, whom she was sent to live with in Lagos, sexually abused her as a child, how she battled depression and suicidal thoughts, and how she started her rape survivors foundation to help victims of gender-based violence and sexual abuse

Can you tell us about your background and early life?

I am the first child in a family of nine. My dad was a military man before he died. I am from Edo State. By the age of 12, my father sent me from Port Harcourt to Lagos to stay with my uncle.

One night, I was sleeping, and my uncle started sexually abusing me. I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t know that I could tell an adult. The abuse stopped when someone invited me to a church, and that was my first time going to that church.

The pastor looked at me and said, ‘You want to tell me something, you want to tell me your uncle is molesting you, but you don’t know what to do.’ As the pastor said that, I began crying.

The pastor told me to shout whenever my uncle came close to me again so that his wife would wake up. That night, my uncle came up and I started shouting, and he left me alone.

My uncle was a policeman. The following morning, my uncle looked at me, showed me a gun, and told me that if I told anybody what was going on, he would kill me. So, that was why I didn’t tell anybody. There was no sexual education at that time that taught children to speak up if an adult touched them inappropriately.

You’ve often shared how female genital mutilation and sexual abuse shaped your childhood. How did these experiences influence your decision to become a gender rights advocate?

I used to fall into severe bouts of depression where I wouldn’t be able to do anything or leave my room. I didn’t know it was depression. I would just be sad; for months, I wouldn’t be able to do anything. That overwhelming feeling of sadness was there. I wouldn’t go to church or my office. I always wanted to stay alone in the dark.

By 2015, I started hearing voices that would tell me to kill myself.

One day on Facebook, I saw a write-up by Dr Memuna Kadiri. She’s a psychiatrist. She wrote that you can seek help if you feel like killing yourself. So, I took down her number.

One day, I was getting ready to go to my office, and I heard those voices again. So, I called her. She runs a private psychiatric clinic in Lekki. I checked myself into her clinic without telling my family where I was going. I dropped my phone with my sister-in-law.

While I was there, I was asked for my address, family, and everything, but I didn’t tell them anything. I started undergoing treatment and therapy, and that was when I was told that I was clinically severely depressed. After two weeks, they were able to persuade me to call a loved one.

After three months in the clinic, I came back home. The diagnosis was that I was suffering from the psychological effect of childhood trauma that I had not healed from. I didn’t know anything like that existed. I didn’t know that if you go through childhood trauma, it can affect your adult life.

What happened after you returned from the clinic?

When I got back, I decided to start a support group for adults like me who went through childhood trauma like child sexual abuse, and have not healed. This is so that they can function properly. I run a support group meeting for rape survivors.

The first thing I did was to put up my story on Facebook, and the response was overwhelming. I didn’t think people would respond like that. People started reaching out to me, saying that they had gone through child sexual abuse and they had yet to heal, while others hid it from their families.

A lot of the time, child sexual abuse is perpetrated by people who are well known to the victims. So, it’s more difficult to even talk about it when it has to do with a family member. Mine was my uncle, my father’s immediate younger brother, somebody I called daddy.

So, I found out that we have a lot of people who have gone through this kind of experience. They’ve not spoken about it, and they’re hurting, which is one of the reasons we have so many ills in society. I started a support group, and what we do there is to bring in therapists, psychologists, and counsellors who come talk to the people.

We don’t do videos, and we don’t take pictures because 100 per cent confidentiality is what I guarantee them, so I don’t post the faces of the people who come to our meetings.

Do you think the depression and suicidal thoughts were a result of what happened?

I think so. I used to think that I was worthless because of what happened to me. I am from a Deeper Life family, and my mother used to tell my sisters and me while growing up that the bes’ gift we could give to our husbands on the wedding day was our virginity.

For sexual abuse to happen to me as a child, I felt that God hated me for allowing it. I used to feel worthless and useless. In my head, I felt I didn’t have anything to offer to my husband.

So, that thought used to ring in my head. My uncle used to say that if I told my mother what was going on, she would not believe me. Unfortunately, when I told my mother, she did not believe me.

What was your reaction when your mum did not believe, and how did it affect you?

It broke me more and made my healing journey difficult because my mother refused to believe me. My uncle is a nice man, so my mother felt that I was trying to implicate a good man, because when my father died, he stood by my mother so well and made sure she was not subjected to the illegal practices of my father’s village people.

My mom was 37 when my father died at 46. Even when they brought the water of my father’s corpse so that my mum could drink it to prove she didn’t kill him, he told them that my mum was a Christian and that she would not do it.

When it got to where they were going to shave her head, he refused. He said they should leave her alone. All of these were reasons my mother did not believe me. It was difficult for me when my mother didn’t believe me. I think it was one of the reasons why I didn’t heal on time. My mother only believed me when I spoke out publicly.

Why are some victims of sexual abuse and harmful cultural practices silent about their experiences?

It is that way because of the kind of society we live in. We live in a traditional, cultural, and religious society. I’ll use myself as an example. When I spoke out, my family was the first to fight me for speaking out.

Like I said, I’m from a very religious family. Why would you come out and say that you went through incest? Do you want to spoil the family’s reputation? So, a lot of the time, the ”a’Ily is thinking about their reputation; they’re not thinking about the welfare of the victim or what the victim is going through.

But now, thank God for social media. For someone like me now, I know what I went through when my family tried to silence me, so once I see someone who speaks out, I reach out to them to let them know that they have support. Our society is a hypocritical one, if I can say that.

So, a lot of families, especially the very religious clergy, in both religions, would rather silence that survivor than give her support. More awareness needs to be raised because anyone who goes through childhood trauma and doesn’t heal is a potential danger to society.

What gave you the courage to publicly tell your story, considering the stigma you could have faced?

Well, I didn’t process it; all I wanted to do was help more people. When I came back from the mental health clinic, I became a better person. It was like I was liberated from the burden that I had carried over the years.

What was topmost in my mind was helping other people who had gone through this childhood trauma to heal so that they could live again.

The support group meeting, we call it ‘Living Purposefully Beyond Sexual Violence’. Getting treatment and healing made me realise that what happened was just a chapter in my book, and not the end of my life.

I wasn’t thinking of the stigma, and it was not something I sat down to process. I just wanted to help, and I felt that if I told my story, it would help people. In 2015, social media wasn’t as toxic as it is today, so I got a lot of support and encouraging words.

For me, the joy in it was the fact that people were coming into my DM and telling me their own stories, even highly-placed people that we look up to, and would never assume that they ever went through child sexual abuse, reached out to me.

You were abused by a man at an early age. Do you have a phobia of men now?

I am married with children, and yes, I had that phobia for men. When I was going to get married, I didn’t marry with pure motives. I got married because I was looking for a man to marry, and the man was going to pay for the sins of my uncle. But as it would happen, I got married to somebody who is very supportive.

On the night of the wedding, I told him that we live like brother and sister, and he agreed. I told him not to call me any pet name, and he agreed. As I speak to you now, my husband calls me Thonia.

There’s no endearment attached to it because my uncle also used endearment a lot, so I can’t stand that from the opposite gender. Unfortunately, when I got married to him, I couldn’t carry out my plan because he was an easygoing person who was not a woman abuser.

It was surprising to my family that I could even get married and stay in a man’s house. My husband helped me through my healing journey. He told me we would scale this hurdle together. I have overcome my phobia of men; I have a son, a husband.

Your foundation collaborates with legal institutions. How effective has the Nigerian legal system been in delivering justice for rape and gender-based violence survivors?

I will narrow it down to Lagos State. Lagos State has been at the forefront; they have tried to deliver justice to survivors of sexual violence. They have tried, but we need them to do more. I had no understanding of how the justice system and the police work. But now I do.

Rape is difficult to prove in court, which is why we say, when it happens, don’t have a bath. Go to a government hospital; don’t wash up, so that the doctors can see the evidence.

We need people to pay for their bad behaviour. That is the only way it will serve as a deterrent to others who also want to commit this impunity. A lot of these perpetrators feel that once they commit the act, nothing will happen to them.

If they know that the justice system is not going to favour the survivor, they keep doing it, which is the reason why we have this high rate of sexual violence and no convictions.

We are appealing to the judiciary; let them do what they’re supposed to do. Yes, let them do what they’re supposed to do. Sometimes, you bring all the evidence to court, the police come, and it changes.

It’s as bad as sometimes I have to keep the evidence, maybe the clothing that the survivor was wearing. So, we’re appealing to them to do more.

Do you think the law has suitable penalties for sexual offenders, or should the government make it stricter?

The law already has strict penalties. The penalty for rape in Lagos state is life imprisonment. Rape is like killing the soul of a human being; that is the reason why the penalty is life imprisonment. So, there are penalties, but the thing is enforcement.

Let the people know that if you commit a crime, you’ll pay the price.

What major obstacles have you faced in pushing for justice through legal advocacy?

One of the major obstacles we face is the fact that I have realised that getting justice is expensive. Another obstacle we found is that our law enforcement officers, I think they need to be trained on how to handle sexual violence. I know that the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Agency has tried, but a lot needs to be done.

If the police don’t send all the proper evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions, the case will not go to court. So, I think the police are one of the first people who need to be trained on how to handle these people. They need to begin to empathise with families.

How would you advise parents to protect their children against predators like uncles and aunts who would sexually abuse them?

Once the child can talk, start talking to the child. There are age-appropriate ways of talking to the child. Let the child know parts of his or her body that should not be touched by anyone. Children learn very fast. If you tell the child, the child will do exactly what you say.

If my mother had told me this while growing up, I would have been able to shout. When we were growing up, there was no enlightenment. If you see that your child is uncomfortable with anybody, don’t force the child to stay with the person or hug the person. (Saturday PUNCH)