We can never have too many rape rehabilitation centres.

Those were some of the many emotionally charged words uttered by the founder of the Women at Risk Foundation (WARIF) organisation, Dr. Kemi DaSilva-Ibru, as the doors of the centre opened to the general public in Yaba on Sunday, November 27 2016.

The entire purpose of the gathering at the opening was to highlight the psycho social dangers and damages accompanied with rape and sexual violence in Nigeria, and reiterate the importance of providing care and support to victims of the heinous crime in society. According to the two main speakers of the day – Dr. Ibru and Indira Henard, the Executive Director of the Washington DC Rape Crisis Centre – it is the collective responsibility of Nigerians to address the malignance adequately.

A high incidence of rape, sexual violence, and trafficking of young girls and women across Nigeria, in addition to the visible scarring effects on said victims led Dr. Ibru to found WARIF which was incorporated in 2015. “I am very happy and proud to start this journey”, says Dr. Ibru, “Because I feel it’s our responsibility to ensure we put an end to sexual violence and rape against all women.”

Centres such as WARIF in Yaba are established by people such as Dr. Ibru and Indira Henard who have spent years of their lives caring for victims of rape and sexual violence who can be as young as two years of age. In a society such as Nigeria, where the adverse effects and stigma attached to the crime weighs more on the victim and their family than on the perpetrator, the efforts to provide care for victims have to be doubled.

WARIF seems sufficiently aware of this fact. Indira Henard posits that, “This work that we do is ‘heart work’, not hard work. Because on this journey, you have to use your heart. What I can tell you all is that the centre [WARIF] is a game changer… It takes a community, country, and world effort, and my organisation [DC Rape Crisis Centre] will be here every step of the way.”

It does indeed take the right amount of ‘heart’ for the Nigerian society to come to a place where it consciously acknowledges the oppressive and destructive existence of rape, and determinedly treats the issue with the appropriate attention. Starting from its roots in the home and the education of children. As opposed to applying the common “if we ignore it for long enough, it will go away” mentality.

Children in Nigeria suffer from the lack of a proper administration of sex education, and this is another area where WARIF is showing initiative.

In addition to the newly launched centre, Drs. Ibru and Henard are building a sex education program targeted at students. Children are the heart of Dr. Ibru’s foundation, and thus she believes that open and direct education of children can help build a culture of speaking out about sexual abuse in their environments.

But, the current focus of WARIF is on girls and women who have already suffered from the dastardly act. While the founders understand that the prevention of rape is critical to its mitigation, it cannot fail to recognise and prioritise the present effects.

Dayo Oluwole, a principal consultant to WARIF reemphasised the origins of rape and sexual violence, citing it as another tool in the fight against the disease. She states that gender-based violence is not about sex, but rather gender-based inequality.

“It’s about the way the boy-child is grown with the entitlements, while a girl-child is brought up living in a kitchen and being told not to talk back. Because rape is about power.”

However, WARIF isn’t only about girls and women. The school initiative is also aimed at educating boys about rape, and the centre hopes that in time it will expand so that men and boys who are also victims of rape and sexual violence can break the stigma surrounded with speaking out and seek help and counselling.

The WARIF centre in Yaba will offer quality care to patients in a three-pronged approach; medically, psychosocially, and socially, in collaboration with other governmental and non-governmental organisations. In the long run, WARIF hopes to tackle the multifactorial problem of rape by creating more centres in collaboration with like-minded stakeholders.

“We need to start talking about these issues now. We need to start raising awareness, and collaboration is the key, and it’s important.”

Tips to bear in mind when a sexual violence crime occurs:

• Go quickly to a rape centre or hospital. This helps to not just preserve evidence (which is best utilised within 72 hours of the crime), but to also determine the victim’s overall health at the time. WARIF has a well-equipped medical facility to help with this.
• Speak up. Report the perpetrator of the crime, no matter who they are. As this is one of the most difficult aspects, it is advised to confide in someone who is completely neutral.