5 WAYS TO KNOW IF A TUTOR IS SEXUALLY ABUSING HIS/HER STUDENT

According to the National Health Service, United Kingdom, child sexual abuse covers a range of illegal sexual activities, including:

• possessing images of child pornography
• forcing a child to strip or masturbate
• engaging in any kind of sexual activity in front of a child, including watching pornography
• taking, downloading, viewing or distributing sexual images of children
• encouraging a child to perform sexual acts in front of a webcam
• not taking measures to protect a child from witnessing sexual activity or images
• inappropriate sexual touching of a child, whether clothed or unclothed
• penetrative sex.

Both boys and girls can be victims of sexual abuse, but girls are more likely to be abused.

Now, do you ever wonder why an assassin feels so happy when he / she guns down a target? A repented killer once narrated that the same way a hunter feels when he guns down an animal at one shot is the way an assassin feels when he kills his target. Why do rapists feel a sense of satisfaction when they attack their victims? You may call it wickedness; that is exactly what it is. But, both wickedness and kind-heartedness are all responses to emotional stimuli. Emotions are one the greatest promoter of human actions. People drink hard drinks to satisfy emotions. Robbers steal for emotional satisfaction. Assassins kill for emotional satisfaction. Everyone possess diversity of emotions triggered by happenings around us.

Research has it that the two strongest emotions that drive a man (male or female in this context) are; money and sex. They are so powerful that people can kill and do any other thing just to satisfy these emotions.

We must understand that tutors do not come from the moon and as such possess gargantuan proportion of emotions. Howbeit, humans are created with the innate ability to manage emotions and not to allow emotions manage them. So, there is no justification for excessive or abusive use of these emotions. Countless occasions, tutors have violated the sexual rights of their pupils / students both in school and at home. At www.tiptutors.com, we describe any offence of sexual violation as one that deserves death.  It is like putting somebody under a ‘god’ and the god turns out to ruin who he was meant to guide and guard.

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund reported in 2015 that one in four girls and one in 10 boys in Nigeria experience sexual violence before the age of 18. Findings from a national survey carried out in 2014 on Violence Against Children in Nigeria confirmed one in four females reported experiencing sexual violence in childhood with approximately 70 per cent reporting more than one incident of sexual violence.

It means that of the 99.1 million estimated number of women in Nigeria, 24.8 million may have experienced some form of sexual violence. And for almost 70 per cent of that number, it was more than a happenstance.

To further explain how grim the climate is, it is interesting to note that it was found that 24.8 per cent of 14,560,417 (3,610,983) females age 18 to 24 years experienced sexual abuse prior to age 18, of which 5.0 per cent (108,549) sought help, with only 3.5 per cent (126,384) receiving any services.

The criminal and penal codes of 1990 are the laws guiding rape justice in Nigeria. The code is deficient in many ways.

For instance, the law defines rape as having unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman or girl without her consent, or with her consent if it was obtained by force or by means of intimidation. Source: Premium Times

This number is indeed alarming. Unfortunately, these numbers represents only recorded cases. There will be no wrong in saying that the unrecorded cases outweigh the recorded cases.

Here are some of the signs you should watch out to know if a tutor is having sexual affairs with a student / pupil;

1. When the tutor starts losing authority over the student (especially for students who are teenagers): Whenever a student starts talking to a tutor in disrespectful manner and the tutor seems handicapped, it is a pointer that something might have gone bad in their conversational relationship. This is made prevalent when it is only a particular student (opposite sex) that is does this. Meanwhile, other students dread (positively) the tutor except the student, and helplessly, the tutor doesn’t want to do anything about it and seeks for measures to immediately make peace with the student.

2. Tutor starts becoming overly nice to the student; This can be noticed through constant gifts, unusual compliments especially on body parts, etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with tutors being nice to their students. In fact, the centre of every effective learning is love demonstrated in empathy. Tutors are expected to love their students. If possible, present gifts to them especially if this will arouse hunger for improved learning. But, when a particular student gets attention more than the others, something definitely is wrong.

NB: Some tutors are so crafty that they will do the opposite. That is, they would become more hostile to the student just to remove attention from the others. This is rare though, and appropriate care should be taken in both cases.

3. Tutor starts playing with student in ways that allow him/her to touch each other, even in delicate places

4. When the tutor begins to crave for the presence of the student and vice versa: This can be noticed when a tutor continues to spend more time with his/her student long after the class periods has ended. Please, watch out.

5. Tutor starts to overly condone students unruly behaviours. On the other hand, these are signs to watch out for from the children’s (students’) angle;

• Frequent use of sexual languages and behaviour that is inappropriate for the child’s age.
• Bedwetting or soiling the bed, if the child has already outgrown these behaviours
• Not wanting to be left alone with certain the tutor or being afraid to be away from primary caregivers, especially if this is a new behaviour
• Tries to avoid removing clothing to change or bathe.
• Resuming behaviours that they had grown out of, such as thumbsucking
• Nightmares or fear of being alone at night Physical problems – the child may develop health problems, including soreness in the genital and anal areas or STI’s, or they may become pregnant.
• Avoiding the abuser – the child may dislike or seem afraid of a particular person and try to avoid spending time alone with them.

NOTE: In handling any of these cases, absolute care and discretion is needed. In our next article SOLUTIONS TO TUTOR-STUDENT SEXUAL ABUSE, Udochukwu Chikwendu narrated steps to securing children and teens from being violated sexually.