Rape: Centre Advises Parents To Pay Adequate Attention To Children

The Enugu State Sexual Assault Referral Center (Tamar SARC) has advised parents to pay adequate attention to their children and wards to avoid them being victims of sexual abuse and violence.

The Centre Manager, Tamar Sarc, Evelyn Onah gave the advice on Monday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu.

Onah urged parents to endeavour to know what their children are doing, including the friends they interact with in schools, at home and the social media.

She advised parents to make their children their friends so that they could open up to them on any issue bothering them.

Onah also cautioned parents against buying expensive android devices without parental control adding that it exposes them to porn sites.

“This is the computer age and these children know more than us, they navigate the phones the way they want. Parents are supposed to have censor to checkmate them and they should not allow them to trust everybody.

“Most times, parents are the ones pushing them outside without monitoring their activities and they get raped,” Onah said.

The manager further advised parents to watch out if their children refused to go on an errand for somebody.

“If you have an older boy in your house and you observe that your child behaves somehow when he asks her to do something, know that something is wrong.

“Be observant and understand the child and do not push the child to do what he or she does not want to do. Pay attention to them and have time for them,” she advised.

She urged children to speak out whenever they were assaulted and confide in someone in order to save their lives.

Tamar SARC was set up by the Enugu State Government to support Gender-Based Violence (GBV) survivors with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through Pathfinder International.

The centre offers free medical, counselling and other support services to the victims and survivors of GBV in the state and beyond.