A day in the life of... Lagos' only rape support centre

Read and be inspired.....

Dami is just nine years old. A neighbour is currently being held in prison, accused of raping her. 

The Mirabel Centre is not easy to find. It is on the premises of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, beside the mosque, I am told. But when I ask a few people for directions, they seem as baffled as to its whereabouts. Eventually, a young doctor escorts me there. And it is nothing like I imagined.

In my mind, I had conjured an image of a semi-detached patch of serenity; the sort of place that might offer at least the little comfort to be found in bricks and mortar. In reality, Lagos' only rape centre is a long, dimly lit corridor lined with tiny rooms. With arms outstretched, you can almost touch each side. And the overall sense is of one of the walls closing in. But if the place itself seems less than welcoming, the same cannot be said for the staff. Joy, a counsellor with long yarn braids and glossy lips, and Juliet, the manager of the centre, both greet me with a hug.

Joy is one of the counsellors at the centre. 

Juliet shows me around. She wears a fitted white dress with orange lace panels and a near permanent grin. They own just two rooms and a small cubicle that is used as a waiting area, she explains.There are clients there now, so she sections the area off with a brown wooden divider. It is important to protect the identities of the people they see, she explains, because they share parts of the space with the hospital, including the examination room that doubles as a theatre for minor surgical procedures. On the doors and the divider are stickers intended to send a clear message about just who is at fault for rape. One declares: "It doesn't matter what she was wearing or what she was doing, no doesn't mean yes."

Mercy's story

Our attention is taken by a young girl rushing down the corridor. She bangs forcefully on the door of the toilet. I recognise her as Mercy, a 15-year-old I met at a survivor's forum a few months ago. She didn't talk much then, but today she comes and sits by me in one of the consulting rooms that belong to the hospital. Mercy was raped by a cousin when she was six years old. She now suffers from fistula. She is wearing a bright red dress and a glow in the dark rosary. We hug and exchange pleasantries. She left school when she was 11 and is learning fashion, she tells me. She seems happier than the last time I saw her. 

Then Mercy begins to recount her story.

She was six years old when it happened and living in Benue state, in the north central region of the country. One day she returned from school with three friends. A 17-year-old male cousin had been harassing her, and that night he brought four other men to the house. For Mercy, everything from the moment he began to rape her is a blur. Her next memory is of waking up in the hospital the following day, and being told what had happened. All of the girls were raped, possibly multiple times by more than one of the attackers, but Mercy does not know for sure because she blacked out. One of her friends did not survive; another died last year as a result of the injuries she sustained on that night. Mercy and one other girl are now the only survivors. She had to leave school because of the fistula that developed resulting from the attack. Doctors had told her that she was too young to undergo the restorative surgery known as VVF. And, unable to afford adult diapers, she must rely on cloth to soak up the waste that leaks from her. "The thing [the fistula] always disgraces me," she says.

Nike's story

Nike has sickle cell disease and a bad hip. She was on her way to a job interview in March when she asked a man for directions. She was clearly in pain and limping, and the man urged Nike to let him drive her to where she was going. He explained that there was barely any public transportation in the neighbourhood and that he could see she was having difficulty walking. Then he drove her to a secluded area. "He started threatening me and beating me," she says. The man raped her in his car and then dropped her in front of a church. From there she found her way to where she was due to be interviewed. But, once inside, she broke down. The owner of the company brought her to the centre.

Nike has pressed charges but her attacker, who it emerged was a serial rapist, has gone missing. She says the police must have given his parents her contact details as they turned up at her home, begging her to drop the charges and offering her financial compensation for doing so - although no particular sum was mentioned. Now she feels unsafe where she lives and wants to move.

Suffocating

The intensity of the centre is stifling. I step outside for a breather and see Juliet, Joy and Valentina giggling as they break open the shells of boiled peanuts. I wonder how they do it; how they stay so happy. Just three interviews in and I already feel claustrophobic in every sense of the word. The stories are suffocating; the strain of trying to hold back my tears makes my face ache; the space is cramped; and a loud drilling noise from the construction work next door provides a constant soundtrack. I ask Juliet how she manages to detach herself from the stories she hears and she laughs, almost mockingly, at the question. It simply is not possible, she tells me. "Our mandate is to provide clinical and psycho-social support," she continues. "But because of the way we present ourselves and go about our duties, these clients have come to trust us [so much] that whatever they need they come back to us. Your life revolves around it. We find ways to joke and make ourselves happy so that we don't experience secondary trauma."

Visit :

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/my-nigeria/2015/09/nigeria-lagos-rape-support-centre-150906092402721.html. for more information

Sent in by Gbemisola