PH Safe Home Also Caters For Abused Males

For quite some time now, issues bordering on gender based violence, or precisely; sexual assault, are either making the rounds in the society, or its attendant solution is placed at the front burner of government and non-governmental organisations’s discussions.
Sexual abuse is one of the most perplexing and confusing problems facing families today, a painful traumatic family secret with rippling effects upon the entire family. However, a conscious therapy for families who are impacted by sexual abuse can help them heal from the abuse and create tools to assure no further abuse will happen in their family.
Although it is difficult to fully assess the number of families affected by this phenomenon, the 2010 report from the United States Department of Health and Human Services estimated that 9.2per cent of children are sexually assaulted, approximately one in five girls, and one in 20 boys.
While it is necessary to bemoan and condemn the act, it is very expedient to consider adequate rehabilitation measure (s)such as alternative housing accommodation to potential victims and, or survivors. Potential victims? Yes, potential victims, perhaps we do not know that many young people faced with the challenge of homelessness end up being sexually assaulted.
On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of children are abused by someone they know: a family member, a close family friend, a member of clergy, or a youth leader. Such homes where sexual violence is being perpetrated by household members, landlords, or neighbors may not be safe.
We need not be told that there are indisputable long-term negative effects to child sexual abuse for many, if not most, victims. Such problems as eating disorders, substances abuse disorders, and sexual dysfunction, not excluding guilt, shame, re-victimization, diminished self-esteem, depression, relationship difficulties, and/or other types of dissociative disorders.
There is thus, ample evidence that sexual abuse is damaging and warrants intensive and specialized intervention to stop the abuse and aid in recovery. This is why the need to find safe alternative housing for children that are sexually threatened as well as survivors of sexual assault, abuse, and harassment, in order to heal and reduce the effects of the trauma they have experienced, has become imperative.
Luckily, the realization of the fact that safe, affordable, and stable housing can be a protective factor against experiencing sexual victimization, as well as provide a healing environment to survivors, has given birth to a “safe home” for victims of sexual and gender-based violence by Rivers State Government.
Just recently, the State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, commissioned a safe home at Borikiri in Port Harcourt City which he said is also open for abused males. Mr Wike said, “Let us not think that it is only for women. It is also for young boys who are also assaulted so that they can also have some psychological debriefing.”
The governor chided governments which only focused on infrastructural development, forgetting to include the vulnerable people in their programmes, to take this as a special project.
Common long-term psychological and social effects of sexual violence include depression, chronic post-traumatic stress symptoms, interpersonal disturbances, and revictimization
Let’s not forget that healing of the victim, helping him/her feel safe again and work through the trauma they experienced will be the main goals this safe home.
The “safe home” will not only provide shelter for victims of domestic violence, it will help them access justice, medical reference and reintegration into the society.

By: Sylvia ThankGod-Amadi