Sodomy among children neglected but growing

Lebogang Mosikare | Friday April 28, 2017 15:09

On Monday, Mmegi’s sister publication, The Monitor, reported about a Block 4 boy aged 15 who allegedly indecently assaulted a nine-year-old one from his neighbourhood in 2013.

In The Monitor’s story, the alleged perpetrator denied ever sexually abusing the complainant by inserting his manhood in his anus.

The Court heard that the ‘abuser’ used a knife when he allegedly committed the offence.

He allegedly warned the complainant that he will stab him with the knife that he was brandishing when he committed the act at the river, if the complainant told anyone about his harrowing ordeal.

The complainant however, ended up telling his aunt and the matter was reported to the police.

The above-mentioned case is similar to the one that happened about three years back at Monarch.

In that incident, a junior school student told three male primary school neighbours to escort him to the river.

When he arrived at the river, he allegedly performed anal sex on all his neighbours after which they informed their parents.

These kinds of problems happen in our society more than most people realise.

Police are of the view that these cases are under-reported because parents of all parties concerned in the matter mostly solve them at family level.

Kgomotso Jongman, a Social Work lecturer at the University of Botswana (UB) said globalisation has a role to play in this problem.

Citing an example brought about by globalisation, Jongman said during the early 1990’s when most families started buying television sets in large numbers, a lot of gangs like Maspotis and others sprang up throughout the country because of the influence of television.

Jongman noted that gangsterism was rife in the country because local gangs probably wanted to imitate Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G who they watched from the comfort of their living rooms on their televisions.

Said Jongman: “Children want to imitate what they see around them in their everyday lives and what they see on television. These are some of the major problems that cause some young boys to have anal sex with others”.

The ordeal, Jongman stated, makes the victims to lose their self-esteem and self-respect.

He asserted that the perpetrators of this kind of sexual abuse actions could be helped through the process of Cognitive Restructuring.

He said there should also be intensive public education about the issue so that people can appreciate what it entails and how to solve it.

Professor Nancy Kellogg, the programme director of child abuse fellowship at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, in the US says the problem is one of sexual behavioural problems.

In a scholarly article entitled, ‘Sexual Behaviours in Children: Evaluation and Management’, Kellogg defines these kind of immoral sexual behaviour as developmentally inappropriate or intrusive sexual acts that normally involve force or distress.

“Such behaviours should be evaluated within the context of other emotional and behaviour disorders, socialisation difficulties, and family dysfunction, including violence, abuse, and neglect,” Kellogg said.

She said children who lived in environments where there wa s nudity and less privacy in dressing, bathing, or sexual activity among adults, are most likely to openly engage in this kind of behaviour.

Just like in the Block 4 case stated above, Kellogg and Jongman are also of the view that younger children may be coerced by an older child through threats to comply with his sex needs and keep the issue secret or else he will harm them should they inform adults or anyone else.

The two scholars are also of the view that the Internet and pornographic movies also play a huge role in this problem.

On the other hand, Wikipedia says that children who take part in sex plays with friends and siblings may become perpetrators or victims of this vice.