Girls In Abuja Community Brag About Getting Raped –Surveillance Group

Adjacent to the headquarters of the National Immigration Service, Abuja, is the densely populated Souka community, which was almost overtaken by criminal activities, violence against children and girls till the inauguration of the Surveillance Team-a community vigilante group.

Women battering, rape and substance abuse by young men are top on the list of criminal activities in the community until the intervention of the Surveillance group..

The presence of government is not felt in the community, as residents decry the absence of police posts, hospitals and schools among other social amenities.

The situation seemed to have encouraged crime among the youth population of the area who harass girls and commit rape at will, especially under the influence of drugs, Vincent Boust, Secretary of the Surveillance group explained.

He said, “Young boys between the ages of 15-18 are the most peddlers of illegal drugs, and the girls on the other hand are not helping matters. In the evening you see them parading this place.

“On the issue of girls getting raped, I would say that they are also fueling it themselves, if you see that a girl is raped today, another will also want to be raped tomorrow, so they begin to brag about it, influencing other young girls. “

But since the formation of the vigilante, it has been able to curb many of the social problems in the community, including drug abuse and crimes.

 Boust said that the 10-man surveillance group, which is made up of farmers, and people in business have committed themselves to change the narrative of the community.

“As a team, We are taking our lives in our hands to checkmate the activities of criminalS in this community,” he said.

According to him, young boys between the ages of 15-18 are the largest peddlers of illegal drugs and have taken it as a means of livelihood.

He explained that attempts to arrest the identified drug peddlers failed, as they were immediately released by the police.

“When we arrested the people who misuse drugs and alcohol, we were surprised that they even got to the community before us and whosoever initiated the arrest becomes their target of attack.

“We discover there has been a kind of departure from the disciplined lifestyle that we grew up with.

“This is what we are trying to tackle now, we have been able to rescue some young girls, we have even had a case where a girl was abducted and kept in the forest for two weeks, but immediately we heard of the case, we entered the forest and we were able to rescue her. “

According to him, the group has achieved some successes in discouraging drug abuse among youths in the community.

“We also educate mothers on the dangers of child mutilation, before we have parents give their sick children concoction instead of taking them to the hospital,” he said.

Speaking further, Bourst called for the support of the government through provision of police posts, hospitals, schools to help improve on the gains recorded so far.

He said:  “We need a police post that can help us take some cases to the station for immediate action. We do not have a single police patrol this place at night, and we most times have these cases at night. If we can have a stationery police post here, it will help us a lot.

“We do not have hospitals, there are times when we take rape survivors or anyone that has been attacked to the hospitals in the other communities, and they turn us back, because they cannot do free examination. But if we have a government hospital here, more attention will be given to us and to the patients we carry there.

“And also, in cases of rape, we cannot go to the station without doctor’s report, so we need very urgently, the attention of the government in the areas of hospital, police post and secondary school for our children.”

The Community head, Aguma of Sauka Village, Yusuf Magaji, said that violence against women and girls, drug use are the problems facing the community.

But he said the surveillance group is doing a lot to restore sanity to the community, as they carry out sensitization program to improve the lives of the people.

He said, “In the past, even without clothing, people move around but now even with clothes, girls and children get raped.

“Young men abuse substances; it is a reality of today’s world. Most parents are now unable to caution their children.

“But the Surveillance group sensitizes parents to educate their children and wards on the way they dress.”