Rape Everywhere!

Under-aged girls are no longer seemed to be safe in this country, yet many appear seemingly untroubled by the trend.

The clearest illustration of this kind of cause-effects link tends to be that men with ugly sexual passion rape them at any slightest opportune time. This seems to take place everywhere, since the victims are even raped on the farms.

This is what we read about in the papers every day. It is so disgusting. But why do they defile our girls and leave them with scars for life? Some people claim it is done in order to give the predators supernatural powers; others claim it is done for fun.

Whatever the motive maybe, rape is abominable.

Just last Tuesday a man pleaded to rape related charges of a seven-year-old girl in Latirkunda German, at the Kanifing Magistrates' Court. The unsympathetic man told the court that the girl had consented to the act. Who will believe this?

There is a lesson here for everybody: young girls should not be allowed to go about all-alone. They should always be accompanied. Besides, they should be trained not to accept gifts from strangers.

But we are glad to see that the culture of silence on rape is being broken in our society. Not too long ago, such things were never talked about. They were covered up in the name of whatever. Now those rape victims themselves are beginning to speak up, we are on our way to dealing with the menace once and for all.

Government should impose maximum penalty on perpetrators of rape. Once it is established that the act is not consensual, the perpetrator should go in for life. We hold that one reason for the rise of rape cases in our society is that the law is lenient on offenders. Its point of departure is that, if a perpetrator knows that he will be jailed for life, he would think twice before taking off his pants.