The chairperson of the Plateau Chapter of the Nigerian Association of Women Journalist (NAWOJ), Jennifer Yarima, has observed that women and girls living in houses without toilet facilities are more at risk of being raped.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Jos, Ms Yarima said that if women and girls had proper toilet facilities, hoodlums would not find anything to capitalise on in their quest to commit the heinous crime.
She lamented that some rapists took advantage of the fact that most homes in some communities did not have toilets, as such found it easy to track down their victims.
Ms Yarima revealed that NAWOJ had spoken with the Commissioner for Environment in Plateau on the need to ensure that houses had toilet facilities, adding that defecating in the open by females, aside from the health implications, provided opportunities for rapists.
The chairperson advised that parents should be mindful of people they entrusted their children to as most rape and abuse cases were usually carried out by such persons.
She also called on parents to educate their children on sex education, saying that if they failed to do so, peers and other people might do so in a wrong manner.
“We must educate our children as a family so that when they go to the society, they will know what act is wrong or right, and would also know how to control themselves outside.” she said.
She said the culture of silence by most families when a member was raped, needed to be jettisoned as such act encouraged culprits to continue the heinous crime.
NAN recalls that in July 2019, the Acting Managing Director of Jos Metropolitan Development Board (JMDB), Kefas Yilrwang, had lamented that some houses in Bukuru and Jos metropolis were built without toilet facilities.
Mr Yilrwang had told NAN that occupants of such houses simply located nearby bush or abandoned building structures, to ease themselves.
In an interview with NAN at that time, a female tenant (name withheld) had said she often went to nearby ‘bush’ to defecate, adding, “that is what most tenants in this area do.”
“It is not a new thing; we are used to it and we have accepted it because the house rent is very cheap and affordable to us.
“Some day, our income might improve to enable us secure accommodations with toilet facilities, but for now, this is what we can afford, ” she had said.
NAN