Violated at 7, Mum-of-2, Theodora, Shares Her Painful Story To Warn Parents

Theodora Onyelechiya Okpalike, a lawyer and mother of two, has revealed eye-opening details of her experience as a victim of child sexual abuse. Her nightmare began when she was only seven years old in Enugu, where she spent three years of childhood.

“The first was my then maternal uncle,” she told MIM. “He was 15 at the time and I was about seven. I also had six and four-year-old younger sisters respectively.

“He came to live with us to further his education, so we were free with him. But after sometime, I noticed that he visited me at night. A special visit

She continued, “He would lie on me while I was asleep, remove my pants, and insert his erect phallus in between my laps, just close to my vulva. He would do whatever till he released. Then he would cover me up with my gown, ignoring my pants.

“I only woke up when I felt his presence around me, as this went on most nights. I usually stayed awake till he was through, scared of the unknown, hated him so much, but was afraid to confront him or stop him from what he was doing.”

The young girl felt helpless and miserable but was too frightened to report to anyone, and so the abuse continued for a month till he returned to his house.

“I could not open up to anyone at the time because I was scared. Not that I was threatened not to talk by these men, but I was naive, and could not reveal the happenings to my then distant and busy parents,” she said.

She later learnt that her abuser also sexually molested her younger sisters on those few nights when he did not visit her room.

According to her, there were two more abusers after him, including her neighbour, Stephen, who was likely 24 years old then.

She recalled sadly, “We used to visit his family house to watch cartoon when his parents and other siblings had left home for life’s engagements.

“One day, as we were enjoying our cartoon with other children, he started asking for our ages. I was the oldest because I was eight then. He sent every other person away except me, because he said the next movie was only for grown ups like me. I felt good being a grown up.

“He then inserted the cassette into the VCR, closed all the curtains and came back when it started showing some dressed man and woman who seemed to be talking to themselves, as there was no volume. They started undressing themselves then started having sex. That was my first exposure to ‘blue film’.

She continued, “He made me kneel, removed his trousers, raised my gown, and removed my pants. He inserted his huge phallus just as my uncle used to do, and started wiggling the damn thing, till he shot out some very thick mucoid stretchy thing, and stood up for the bathroom, came in again, then told me to clean up with toilet roll and go home.”

It happened only once, she said, but she hated him after that and avoided him as much as she could.  Yet, again, she could not tell anyone.

The sexual abuse reoccurred when she was 12, this time with another maternal uncle. She said, “The older brother to the other abusive maternal uncle visited and attempted his own, it was non-penetrative too, but never tried again, because I started locking our room. Again, I hated him.”

Feelings of guilt and shame enveloped her – as is common with most victims of sexual abuse – so much so that she made confessions to her priest twice. It, however, did very little to lift the heavy burden of guilt and shame off her chest.

“It kept haunting me,” she said.

Now, years later, the mum of two is determined to protect her daughters from sexual abuse. She said, “Presently, as a mother of two girls, I am overly protective of my two little girls. I leave instructions to my house help every now and then, and make sure I am around when my brothers visit. God willing, it can’t happen again! I know better.”