The northern part of Nigeria (Arewa) is often seen as the citadel of culture and strong religious beliefs. However, over the last few days, a strong wave of outcry from the silent voices of victims of child molestation and abuse overwhelmed the streets of Arewa Twitter under the #ArewaMeToo. The uproar of the #ArewaMeToo movement revealed a high degree of hypocrisy and nonchalant attitude towards the issues of sexual abuse and harassment in the society.
The #ArewaMeToo is a global movement with variety of names around the world against sexual harassment and abuse. The movement was started in 2006, but became viral as a hashtag on social media in October 2017 in an attempt to demonstrate the prevalence of sexual assault and harassment. Its essence was to encourage victims of sexual assault to tweet about it and give people a sense of magnitude of the problem.
It was quite a disheartening and traumatising experience to everyone that went through the stories narrated by victims of child molestation and abuse under the hashtag. A classical case is of a beautiful young Arewa lady, who reported being molested by her personal tutor at the tender age of 10 under her father’s roof!!! Another reported being molested by her stepmother’s niece at the bare age of eight and also almost got raped at the age of 10 by the son of their gateman. A brave young man cried out from an anonymous account about being raped and molested by seniors during his boarding house days. These are just a few of the many cries submitted by our dear Arewa brothers and sisters. One could only imagine how many more are suffering in silence.
It hurts me to write this as a true son of the northern soil. Evidently, we have failed these victims as a society. #ArewaMeToo has only shed a little light on the overwhelming darkness. We need to rise up, and face the menace lying right underneath the well proclaimed religious and cultural values we portray.
Mahmud Bello Zailani; [email protected]
