She shuddered repeatedly with fear. Her frayed nerves had again gotten the better of her. She thought of ending it all, with the hope that she would be relieved of the gruesome memory of him- forcing his way into her, uninvited, unwanted.

Countless women have been at this horrendous phase, many are still at this point, while some really did end it- in one moment of suicidal determination, just because one person or group of persons decided to forcefully satisfy their carnal desire, at the lifelong traumatic detriment of their victim.

One of such victims- Ibukun, a survivor of rape, shared with YNaija the tale of how she was molested and defiled by a friend who attends the same church with her.

Ibukun, an introvert with a close circle of few friends, had been invited for a house party by Tosin. Heeding to the advice of her friends to loosen up and be more outgoing coupled with the trust she had in Tosin, she agreed to attend the party.

If she had known what would happen to her at the party, she probably would have rescinded her decision to attend, but then, nobody ever plans to get raped, regardless of circumstance of dressing and vicinity.

In her words: “If I knew something was going to happen, if I knew my life was going to change from that moment, if I knew I would lose myself from that day I would have stayed in my house.”

But she did not know, so she attended the party.

The party, she explained, was going on smoothly until she had to use the restroom, so she asked Tosin where she could ease herself. The visitors’ restroom was occupied and she really had to pee, which prompted him to take her to his room so she could use his toilet.

Subsequently, Tosin came into the room and tried to touch her and attempted to kiss her, but she fought him off and tried to leave the room. He blocked all her attempts to flee before finally pushing her on his bed.

At that moment, he had her, overpowered.

Not only did Tosin beat her up, he proceeded to forcefully penetrate her, unprotected, defiling the sanctity of her womanhood. She fought him with all she had but he was stronger. He easily had his way and sated his lust.

Ibukun told YNaija that while Tosin was raping her, all she could think of was dying.

“I came out like nothing happened and went home. I died from that very moment, I was dead inside. I lost everything about me. I did not know who I was anymore. My life was upside down. I became a loner. A sadist. My pillow was always soaked with tears. I did not know who to talk to. I felt like it was my fault.

“I felt empty, like all of my organs and bones have dissolved and all the blood has drained from my veins and it was so exhausting to feel nothing and everything at the same time. I was alive but I was barely breathing. That was how I felt.  All I could do was struggle to draw a breath.”

Perhaps, the greatest tragedy of Ibukun’s story is that Tosin, just for a few minutes of gratification, ruined another human’s life. She did not deserve it. Nobody ever deserves it.

It should make the world spin on its head- to think of how one person’s lewdly gratifying action of a brief moment could forever turn another person’s life completely upside-down, yet this blight of humanity continues to thrive, fester and breathe unabashedly.

The regularity of the menace of rape has become a harsh reality of the Nigerian society. The many faces of domestic abuse are not strange to the average Nigerian. Rape has regrettably, become one of the ‘abnormal norms of the society’ that people are hardly conscious of it, even as it stares everyone in the face.

According to NOI-Polls, ‘7 in 10 Adult Nigerians (67%) think there is a high prevalence of child rape in Nigeria while 3 in 10(31%) personally know of a victim of Child Rape in their local communities.’

Another rape survivor revealed to YNaija how she was raped by three different people including her blood brother on multiple occasions since she was 4-years-old.

The resultant psychological trauma of her experience led her to engage in several social vices before she finally found help in a rape support group.

To protect her from the societal stigma attached to someone who’s been through her ordeal, she opted to be anonymous for the purpose of this report.

She will be called B.

According to B, she was first molested when she went on holiday to her uncle’s house with her siblings.

“I was first raped when I was 4 years old. I was on holiday with my siblings at my uncle’s house. My uncle’s wife’s younger brother molested me while I was sleeping and even though I can’t fully remember how many times, I know it was more than 5 times.

“I told my sister after a while and she reported the matter to my mum who took me to a hospital where they ran different tests on me. She then went to my uncle’s house to fight them.

“We did not speak to their family for over 10 years.”

Another mind boggling aspect of her story is that the matter was treated as a family problem instead of a crime. She revealed that her mother, after going to her uncle’s house to raise hell, did not report the case to the police.

“She did not go to the police and nobody ever spoke of it again” B said. “Everyone thought I forgot”

It is perhaps this culture of silence from parents who are supposed to be attentive to the psychological health of their children that has prompted the Lagos state government to declare cases of domestic abuse as a criminal case as opposed to the civil case of former years.

B further narrates her ordeal: “The second person was my neighbor and I was 7 years old. It happened two times, once in his house and the second time at the backyard of my house.

“And the third was my brother. I was about 10-11 years old and he was about 15-16 then. He raped me multiple times that I lost count of how many times.”

B never spoke of these things, not the actions of her neighbor, not the actions of her brother until November 2015 when she was introduced by her sister to the Stand To End Rape Initiative.

“I did not speak to anyone about it until November 2015 when my sister introduced me to the Stand to End Rape Initiative” she said.

“I also did not speak of my brother raping me till November too. He tried to apologize when he got back from school in December 2015. He even denied that it was on countless occasions, saying that it was only once and I was about 12 years old then.”

While the monsters who force themselves on the female walk the street freely, the victims of their lack of self-control and humanity, live in the shadow of their actions forever.

The aftermath of rape, while it might be a sense of satisfaction for the twisted assailant, usually results in chronic psychological trauma for the victims. A lot of people don’t recover from these life changing events.

B said: “It wasn’t easy to pick myself up after all that… to be sincere. I haven’t picked myself up yet but during that time I just tried to behave like nothing happened to me.

“How I dealt with it was that I put on an ‘I don’t care’ personality which made me withdraw from everyone. I never really tried to deal with it, I just accepted it like that and I did a lot of really bad things as a result.”

Most Nigerian families would easily opt to keep rape and sexual abuse incidents involving their children or relatives as a private matter, and this, on the flip aside, allows the perpetrators go scot-free, with the possibility of continuing the rape-spree.

While B chose to suppress her experience, Ibukun actually contemplated suicide just to ease herself out of the psychological hold of her ordeal before she found help and support.

In her words: “After all these I became depressed, I was suicidal. I was self-harming. I would sleep all day because that was the only way I could break out of my thoughts. I was eating less. I was so ashamed to go out. And while this was happening I was pregnant. Yes, pregnant from rape. I still thought this was my fault, so I did not know who to tell. I was lost and extremely confused. I really didn’t want to keep the pregnancy, I was so desperate to get rid of it. I got a hold of abortion pills and I abused it which led to me bleeding.

“I was lying lifeless on the floor when my sister came in and rushed me to the hospital. Still battling with depression at the same. I went back to self-harming because that was the only pain I could control. I got addicted to Valium, my life was dependent on it. It controlled my life. I was avoiding everybody and every place. I was failing in everything. I was just a walking corpse. I can’t say I want to go to a party. I hated parties,I hated guys. I wanted to become a lesbian badly”

Only the few who have struggled through thick and thin like Ibukun and B are able to tell these stories for the world to see that something is fundamentally wrong with it for not speaking against these monsters.

B’s way of dealing with the heaviness of her trauma was to ignore her pain as it still eats deep and develop a nonchalant attitude towards life while Ibukun sought out a psychologist.

“I was able to get a psychologist who helped me and is still helping me get through this. It hasn’t been easy to be very honest. Now I know it was never my fault”  she said.

She is doing all she can to put her past behind her while even supporting others who have gone through the same experience- to hold on and be strong.

“And all the people going through the trauma of rape, please know that it is never ever your fault. It might look like it is taking forever but you will get to that place of genuine happiness.

“It should have killed you but it didn’t, you are alive. It only left you broken, flattened but stronger. Such a thin line between hurt and hope. Between tragedy and triumph. Between sorrow and strength but you will get through this” she admonished.

While every Nigerian is not a rapist, the onus falls on every member of the society to fight this blight as it is true that if the righteous watch the guilty sin and do nothing, then the righteous do err too.

The more we support the rape victims and survivors by speaking out, the faster it recedes into the darkness and out of our lives.

For B, the support of her sister meant a lot to her even before she eventually got group support from STER. She revealed that “everyone did not believe me except for my sister; she believed me while my mum called me a coward. So I think everyone was against me except for my sister. I don’t even know where I’ll be without her”

Although Nigeria’s rape law stipulates that ‘anyone who is convicted of using violence to have carnal knowledge of a woman without her consent shall be guilty of rape, and must be punished with life imprisonment’, many rapists hardly see the inside of a courtroom and even when they do, they often get away- either through a loophole, a legality, a considerate magistrate and often through inducement.

Society has to do better for the defiled ones.

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People like Ibukun and B are everywhere in the society. They need help, they need support, they need someone to help them through their dark times, someone to hold the torch high and lead them by the hand out of darkness into that safe place called survival.

During the course of this report, YNaija reporter, Adebayo Emeuleomo, spoke to Stand To End Rape Initiative, a non-governmental organisation willing to offer assistance to survivors and victims of rape.