Why More & More Kids Are Being Sexually Abused – Family Life Coach, Pastor BISI ADEWALE

Pastor Bisi Adewale is a family life coach, marriage consultant and child protection expert.  He is a family life coach with more than two decades of experience. He has been privilege to write several books on family life. He is the author of about 90 different books on family life, marriage, parenting, youth, singleness to mention but a few. These books includes best sellers like secrets of a great marriage, sexual fulfillment in marriage, 32 ways to know true love, wives versus mother-in-laws; when will the battle end, 20 weddings that must not take place, money management in marriage, all around success amongst many others.

 He also run a ministry called family booster. Family booster ministry is not a church or a denomination but a ministry that deals with building, helping, growing families. They Ministry help to counsel and support families. They organize seminars and conference all around the year to make sure that the Family is what God wants it to be. He is an Accountant but called and also trained as a family minister to rebuild dilapidated homes.

Sexual abuse among other social vices is on the increase and having a statistics of one out of ten children is being abused is alarming. Every abused is a potential abuser if not properly managed and this sprout a burden in Bisi Adewales heart to write book on SEXUAL ABUSE. His recent books are protecting your children from Sexual Abuse and sexual Education for children of age 1-7(Parents and teachers teaching Manual).

 In an interview with City Peoples Society Reporter TITILOPE OGUNLEYE, he shared some painful experience of sexually abused victims, parental factors that increases the possibilities of sexual Abuse of children and possible solution.

How long have you been running the family booster ministry?

By September this year, it will be 20 year that we have been running the family booster ministry on a full time basis.

Sexual Abuse is not a joke because it has affected a whole lot of people and your recent books are dealing with that. Can you brief us on what should we expect in the book?

The first one is protecting your children from sexual abuse and the second is sex education for children (Age 1-7), a manual for parents and teacher. The first one was written to open the eyes of parents to the menace of sexual abuse. A lot of parents are not aware that some people can have sexual intercourse with children and many of them believe it is not possible. Many parents are so naive and they think because they can’t do it, then nobody else can and that case is like saying I don’t eat lion so lion can’t eat me. The Truth is that sexual Abuse is on the increase and it is destroying lives and marriages. I have seen so much as a marriage counselor and as a family expert to force me to write this book. After the first book, the question is now you have told us about sexual Abuse and how do we now train our children and necessitated the second book which is a manual for parents and teachers on how to train their children from the age of 1-7. Another one is coming out soon that is titled sex Education for pre-teens. Then sex Education for teens, boys and girls so that parents can have a full package. The first book helps to know who a predator is, how to detect when they are close to your family, what to do prevent a child from being molested, peradventure a child is molested how will you get to know and what do you do when such happens. That is the essence of the first book.

Why have you decided to write on Sexual Abuse of all social vices?

What we do is to look at different angles in family lives and write on them. I have written a book on Money management in marriage because when money becomes an issue in marriage, that marriage may end up hitting the rock. I have also written on strange women in marriages and also on wives versus mothers-in- law and how to handle it on the part of the wives, mother-in-law and husbands. But recently, you will hardly read a newspaper and not find a story on Sexual Abuse of children but this really got to me some few months ago. I had been procrastinating on it for a long time but in a middle of one night, someone sent a WhatsApp video to me and by the time I opened it, it can be rated as one of the most nauseating videos I have ever seen. A boy of about seven years was having oral sex with a girl of six in the school compound, in their school uniform with one of their friend filming it and they posted it online. That night I could not sleep till about 5 in the morning. I sat down quickly, brought out my writing materials and note that I have been procrastinating on and I didn’t stop till after three weeks that we finished. I wrote day and night and it occurred to me that maybe God sent that message to me through a friend so that I can do something and since it is in my capacity to do something, why not? Maybe I can save one child, may be yet another one and it became a passion, burden and calling but as I was writing, I desire to write one book and I began to ask myself questions that I know people would ask me. I saw a lacuna in what I was writing, I was giving them information but how do they pass it on to their children and right there I know another book will come out. Immediately I finished, I didn’t even wait, I started the second book. The third one is what I am working on now and it should be out in the next couple of month. It came out of a burden of what is affecting our society and in that process, I discovered a very saddening statistics that says one out of every ten children has been abused sexually. One out of ten looks small but when you try to work out numbers it will be 10 out of 100, 100 out 1000, 1000 out of 10000, a million out of ten million and that is too big a risk for me to keep quiet, and that is what forced me to write to inform parent on what is happening around them.

What has the response been since the book so far?

The book came out about a month ago and the response has been tremendous. A lot of newspaper and magazines just like City People are doing now to interview us. I have in about five radio stations and television stations and they gave these things free of charge. City FM gave us two hours interview, we did an hour at first and people began to call in but the time was not enough so we had to come back for another one hour. I have been to TVC, Brilla Fm, Rainbow FM within one month and the response have been great.

Research has proven that abuse doesn’t just happen. It comes with signals and because these children could not confide in their parent, they eventually fall prey and if proper care is not taken it becomes a lifestyle. Eventually the abused may be a potential abuser because he or she has been through it and does not feel indifferent about it. Do you think there is such thing as parental factor on sexual abuse of children?

In the book, we dedicated some part to the factors that predisposes children to be sexual abuse and one of those factors is parental which is very deep. Lack of knowledge and awareness, blind trust are some of the factors associated to parents. Majority of the parents have not seen this statistics that says 50% of abused children are abused by their family members and 80% of people that abuse children are people the children knows and only 20% are abused by strangers. So most of the time, it is the neighbours, sister, uncle, cousin, nephew, brother, aunt are the abusers. In this book, I narrated 51 heart-rending stories of abused victims and you will discover that only two out them were abused by strangers. There was a twin that was abused in turns by their immediate elder brother for about five years and until their parent died they were not aware. So when parents lack understanding and awareness of what sexual abuse is all about then there is a great challenge. Carelessness of the parent can also open children to become victims of sexual abuse. There was a story of a parent who employed a male teacher for their daughter and a room was dedicated for the class and gradually the teacher began to buy biscuits and give her attention and at a point, he stooped teaching the girl and start having sex with her thrice in a week under the parent’s roof. Sometimes the ignorance of parent not giving their children about Sex Education is a major factor. The first defence of the child from being abused is the child first before the parents. If the children are given sex education and anyone is touching them anyhow, they could easily shout and report to their parent. When they shout at the abuser, the abuser is aware that, that child is not ignorant and can easily run away. 

Sexual abuse became a lifestyle for some children because they never mentioned it to their parent. Why is this so?

Sometimes the children are scared of telling the parent because the parenting style we practice majorly in this part of the world is what I call bully parenting and what parent don’t know is that Abuser will so love, care, play with them, give them gifts, give them attention to convince them but an average parent are not just there and sometimes when they are available, they are for their business. Most times the abuser seize the carelessness of the parent as an opportunity to launch an attack and even threatens the child that they would kill or harm the parent and that fear and intimidation will make them remain silent. They might not also open up because of the love, care and attention they lack from their parent and enjoy from the abusers. The abuser will make the child believe he or she is doing them a favour and that everyone around them does the same thing and that they are just helping them become a full-grown lady. The child may believe this since he or she has not had any contrary opinion on sex education. The danger of an Abuse Child if not properly handled is that they became secondary abusers who will abuse other children more expertly because they have stayed long enough in the game to know how to cover their track perfectly without any traces.  Research has shown that 98% of sexual Abuse is caused by parental factor. These are the reasons every parent must be knowledgeable enough to pass sex education to their children because sexual Abuse of children is on an alarming increase daily.

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