Approximately five times more women than men are victims of sexual assault and young adults are at especially high risk. The impact on young people’s psychological and physical health can be devastating, especially given that this developmental period is when young people should be developing and refining intimacy skills in close relationships.

What is striking about sexual assault is that, despite decades of research and public health interventions, there has been little change in rates since we first began studying it in earnest during the 1980s and 1990s.

This is a time when the discourse around sexual harassment and assault is garnering more headlines and dominating more dinner table conversations than ever before —spurred in no small part by sexual assault charges against high profile figures such as Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, the misogyny spewed by the U.S. President Donald Trumpand the unleashed fury of so many women (and men) who want real accountability at long last for these crimes.

As a researcher, my instincts are to turn again to the scientific literature and assess what we know — to look for solutions or at least a clear way forward.

Enough focus on the female victim

Here’s a thumbnail sketch. An extraordinary amount of research on sexual violence — a concept that encompasses sexual harassment, assault and coercion — focuses on victims’ experiences. It asks how many have experienced violence, what factors put them at risk and how they adjusted afterwards.

This focus on female victims leaves one with the strong impression that they are the protagonists in this story, as I have long argued.

The lessons that these studies propagate are: women should avoid alcohol and drugs at parties, women should never wear tight or revealing clothes, women should essentially live a life avoiding young men because, well, young men.

What is staggering to me is how little we know about the men who knowingly assault. What little we do know comes mostly from studies of incarcerated men. But, given how few incidents of sexual violence are even reported to the police and how few of those even make it to a conviction, these crimes and the men who perpetrate them are likely very different beasts altogether from most crimes of sexual assault.

Other studies have examined perpetration indirectly. We have studies of “proclivity” to commit assault and these usually measure responses to questions such as: “How likely would you be to commit rape if you know you would not be caught?”

We also have delved deeply into rape myth acceptance and related constructs, such as sympathy for a rape victim and the perceived guilt of a rape perpetrator.

What we need are studies of non-incarcerated men who knowingly rape. These are the men who work to inebriate and isolate women, for example, often soliciting the help of friends.

There are certainly studies that have assessed behaviours among undetected perpetrators but most of these have relied on university samples receiving course credit for participating.

Who really are the men who will divulge how they plan and enact a crime that is in the news each day, without some assurance that they won’t be identified?

Time to study men who assault

I am certainly encouraged by the work on consent and efforts to ensure that young people learn to distinguish whether a potential sexual partner has given clear and free consent to proceed.

I am even more heartened by the accounts from men of late who regret blithely disregarding a woman’s lack of consent, assuming a power differential that gives them licence to do what they want.

But the consent education perpetuates to some degree a view that women (as gatekeepers) give consent and men (as agents) secure it, and that if communication of consent is clear, assault will likely be averted.

To date, we have a situation in which one of our most effective approaches to the prevention of assault relies on the willingness of bystanders to intervene on a target’s behalf.

This writing constitutes a call for researchers to dig deeper. We need to hear from the men who assault. Yes, we can reach them. No, we should not assume that they are vested in helping eliminate sexual assault.

However, one feature that emerges from the few studies that we do have in hand is that men who knowingly assault tend to do so repeatedly. They often have well-formulated strategies and, with the vanity of the con artist and bully combined, can be induced in some contexts to tell all. Or tell alot. And we need that information in order to make a difference.

Let’s stop surveying women about their experiences as victims; it’s time to really zero in on the men who perpetrate these crimes at long last.

Continue reading: http://theconversation.com/we-need-to-learn-from-the-men-who-rape-106233

By Jessica Eaton

Someone said to me last month: “Most men in university who rape young women do it because they don’t understand consent and misunderstand when women say ‘no’.” Yah. Sorry but I call major BS on that. Sexual violence is not a lack of education. It is not a low awareness. It is not misunderstanding or ignorance. It’s not that these people don’t know what ‘no’ means.

Sexual violence is a global social phenomena wrapped up in misogyny, hypersexualisation of society and children, economic factors, power struggles, porn culture, rape myths, weak laws and… individual motivations.

The uncomfortable truth is that our education cannot undo the damage our society has already done – and we cannot use education of individuals to change the way our entire society of millions of people have absorbed messages from porn, advertisement, patriarchy and the media.

The true way to combat sexual violence is to begin to reflect on the world we have created for ourselves. No point in blaming society when we ARE the society. It is us who allow porn to feature children, violence, rapes, torture, strangling, suffocation and abuse. It is us who allow our children to become sexualised by the media, by marketing and by popular culture. It is us who allow entire generations to be oppressed and harmed by a second powerful group. It is us who are so desperate for power over each other that the heady mix of sex and power gets mixed together to form an influential rape culture that is celebrated and accepted everywhere.

Education alone cannot solve these issues. We need drastic, human, individual and collective change. Educating children in a school hall or adults in a small group therapy about abuse and expecting them to be able to keep themselves safe – and then sending them off into that society we have created for them is WHY none of this is working. Educating sex offenders in prisons and community groups and then sending them off into that very same rape-supportive society we created for them is WHY none of this is working.

A message to professionals and commissioners:

Lots of professionals and commissioners are terrified when faced with the prospect that what they have been told to do won’t actually protect children or adults from sexual violence and to them, I say this:

• Sometimes, you cannot fix a huge global issue like this – but you CAN fix the way you or your organisation responds to it. You might not be able to end sexual violence or abuse or CSE – but you can vastly improve the way you interact with victims and the services you deliver
• Telling someone that the reason they were abused, raped or assaulted was because they didn’t know any better and that knowing more about abuse or rape could have stopped it from happening to them is abhorrent practice – make sure no one in your team says or believes that
• Do we make daft promises like ‘We aim to end murder by 2020’ – no, we don’t. We know that won’t happen. But we are making massive promises like that in abuse and sexual violence. ‘We aim to end child abuse!’ ‘We aim to end CSE’. Good for you, but, you won’t. So stop chasing the impossible dream and focus on what you CAN do. Stop making promises we can’t keep. Stop selling products that don’t do what you say they do.
• Stop commissioning education of victims as preventative or protective method. It’s patronising and it’s unethical. Focus on asking them what they need from you or your organisation. Support? Advice? Practical help? Someone to offload on? Someone to help them with a criminal trial?
• Do not use education as an excuse to blame victims of sexual violence and rape. Education would likely not have made any difference to what a sex offender chose to do to them. The victim is not the problem here, the offender is.
• When you are thinking about the problem of sexual violence, think bigger. Look around you. See adverts, music videos, porn, upskirting, forced marriage, laws, policies, campaigning, imagery, film plots… you live in a sexually violent society that celebrates forced sexual activity and the objectification of women and children
• Remember that you can do a brilliant job of educating children, adults, professionals and even offenders – but to do so you must accept that you can’t predict or control sexual violence perpetrated by offenders you don’t even know.
• Your education might have a positive impact on the people you are teaching, but please do not assume or expect it to protect them from rape or abuse – and don’t blame them if they are attacked after you educated them.
• Outcomes measurement is important here – do not mix up your values and beliefs with true outcome measurement. If you educate 500 teenagers – the outcome is that you provided education to 500 teenagers. The outcome is not ‘we reduced the risk of 500 teenagers’ or ‘500 teenagers are now educated in sexual violence’ or ‘500 teenagers now better understand how to protect themselves’. You provided information, that is what you did.

Jessica Eaton is the founder of VictimFocus and the VictimFocus Charter to reduce victim blaming in professional workplaces and organisations. http://www.victimfocus.org.uk

Continue reading: https://victimfocus.wordpress.com/2018/07/05/why-education-will-never-stop-rape/

By Heather Murphy

In 1976, a Ph.D. candidate at Claremont Graduate University placed a rather unusual personal ad in newspapers throughout Los Angeles:

He sat by his phone, sceptical that it would ring. “I didn’t think that anyone would want to respond,” said Samuel D. Smithyman, now 72 and a clinical psychologist in South Carolina.

But the phone did ring. Nearly 200 times.

At the other end of the line were a computer programmer who had raped his “sort of girlfriend,” a painter who had raped his acquaintance’s wife, and a school custodian who described 10 to 15 rapes as a means of getting even with “rich bastards” in Beverly Hills.

By the end of the summer, Dr. Smithyman had completed 50 interviews, which became the foundation for his dissertation: “The Undetected Rapist.” What was particularly surprising to him was how normal these men sounded and how diverse their backgrounds were. He concluded that few generalizations could be made.

Over the past few weeks, women across the world have recounted tales of harassment and sexual assault by posting anecdotes to social media with the hashtag #MeToo. Even just focusing on the second category, the biographies of the accused are so varied that they seem to support Dr. Smithyman’s observation.

But more recent research suggests that there are some commonalities. In the decades since his paper, scientists have been gradually filling out a picture of men who commit sexual assaults.

The most pronounced similarities have little to do with the traditional demographic categories, like race, class and marital status. Rather, other kinds of patterns have emerged: these men begin early, studies find. They may associate with others who also commit sexual violence. They usually deny that they have raped women even as they admit to nonconsensual sex.

This may be partly connected to a tendency to consider sexual assault a women’s issue even though men usually commit the crime. But finding the right subjects also has complicated the research.

Clarifying these and other patterns, many researchers say, is the most realistic path toward curtailing behaviors that cause so much pain.

“If you don’t really understand perpetrators, you’re never going to understand sexual violence,” said Sherry Hamby, editor of the journal Psychology of Violence. That may seem obvious, but she said she receives “10 papers on victims” for every one on perpetrators.

Continue Reading

Surely, being very educated has little to do with being a rapist. Not even being a graduate of Business and Economics including a masters’ degree in Mathematics in the case of international music star, Antoine Christophe Agbepa Mumba a.k.a. Koffi Olomide could deter him from the lure forced and abusive sexual intercourse with a woman; more so a minor. Last Monday according to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports, Olomide was given a two years suspended jail sentence in absentia by a court in France for raping a 15 year-old girl.

She was one of his former dancers and the act was carried out when she was 15.

This sentence means that the 62 year-old music composer, producer and singer faces an arrest if he commits further offenses, according to BBC. The graduate of Business Economic and pioneer of the soukous genre was order by the court to pay a fine of 5,000 Euros ($5,700; £4,300) in damages to the former dancer.

He was also ordered to pay the same amount to the court for illegally bringing three women into France.

Reports also stated that Olomide’s lawyer, Emmanuel Marsigny hailed the ruling as a victory that it would result in the withdrawal of the star’s international arrest warrant.

The Kisangani born artist in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was accused of raping a young lady between 2002 and 2006 after it was alleged that he seized her passport.

He went on trial after four former dancers claimed he sexually assaulted them several times between 2002 and 2006.

The assaults allegedly happened in the DRC as well as in France, including at a villa outside Paris where the women said they were held against their will.

The dancers said they managed to make a night-time escape from the villa in June 2006, and have not returned to their country since for fear of reprisals.

Prosecutors at his trial in Nanterre, outside Paris, had sought a seven-year prison sentence but the court dismissed the assault and kidnapping charges.

The Master Degree holder in Mathematics was first charged in 2012 with aggravated rape but the charges were subsequently reduced.

Facing a French arrest warrant, he fled to DR Congo in 2009 but had initially said he would appear at the trial to defend himself.

Olomide, however, failed to show for the trial last month, which was held behind closed doors at the women’s request.

The court also dismissed the charges against two men accused of being complicit in the assaults.

Meanwhile, for hitting a Rwandan photojournalist in Lusaka in 2012, he is presently wanted by Zambian police. Also, Olomide already had a brush with the law in France, with a court finding him guilty of tax fraud in 2006.

Another Christmas season gone. Most families and individuals have engaged in divers acts of giving. From donating cash and gifts to the less privileged, to supporting displaced persons, or providing free services to the indigent.

Generosity and selflessness are virtues that should be part of our daily life. Giving ought to be a lifestyle and not something we do on occasions. It’s also important to remember that giving doesn’t always feel great. The opposite could very well be true. Giving can make us feel depleted and taken advantage of. But, regardless of our feelings, we keep giving and serving others because that just might be the secret to living a life that is not only happier but also healthier, wealthier, more productive, and meaningful.

According to a Tara Parker-Pope in the New York Times, gift giving has long been a favourite subject for studies on human behaviour with psychologists, anthropologists, economists and marketers all weighing in. They have found that giving gifts is a surprisingly complex and important part of human interaction, helping to define relationships and strengthen bonds with family and friends. Indeed, psychologists say it is often the giver, rather than the recipient, who reaps the biggest psychological gains from a gift.

 For centuries, the greatest thinkers have suggested the same thing: Happiness is found in helping others. None of us would be where we are today were if not for the great circumstances in which we have grown up. Therefore, it is not just a good thing to give back, it is our duty to try and make the world a better place for those less fortunate than ourselves.

We have rounded up some inspiring musings on selflessness and generosity:

“If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.” Chinese saying.

“True leaders are selfless. They have always been servants of the people first.” Anonymous

“Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life’s deepest joy: true life’s deepest joy: true fulfilment.” Tony Robbins

“A hero is somebody who is selfless. Who is generous in spirit. Who just tries to give back as much as possible and help people. A hero to me is someone who saves people and who really deeply cares.” Debi Mazar

“Helping one person might not change the world, but it could change the world for one person.” Anonymous

“Selfless acts are a source of profound meaning for yourself and your life.” Ron Kaufman

“The happiest are the givers, not the takers.” Anonymous

“It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.” Dalai Lama

“You don’t need a reason to help people.” Anonymous

“It’s when you’re acting selflessly that you are at your bravest.” Veronica Roth

 “Practice being selfless. You end up getting more than you anticipate when your soul is giving.” Anonymous

“Learn to love without condition. Talk without bad intention. Give without any reason. And most of all, care for people without any exception.” Anonymous

“Give to the world the best you have. And the best will come back to you.” Madeline Bridges

“Real love is about being selfless, not selfish.” Anonymous

“A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.” James Keller

“For it is in giving that we receive.” Saint Francis of Assisi

“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.” Leo Tolstoy

“We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill

Hon. Justice Suleiman Galadima has expressed concern over the poor reading culture among Nigerians.

Galadima in his remarks a recent book presentation noted with regret that the cultural readership we inherited in Nigeria is gradually waning. “The practice and its popularity have been on the wane for some time. We devote more time watching television and social network services exemplified by turgid glue to our handsets, Facebook, You-Tube, whatsapp and frequent tweets.” Reading is obviously one of the basic things a child begins to do in the early stages of formal education.The declining interest in reading exhibited by our children today is a cause for alarm and a challenge to all.

But children are not alone for even Nigerian adults are not exempt.

Parents’ and guardians’ inability to buy books for their wards and encourage reading from childhood have been identified as part of reasons why over 30 million Nigerian school leavers have poor reading culture.

Spending lengthy hours on social media as Justice Galadima perceived has a debilitating effect on the reading culture of students, and stakeholders contend that this development could lead to very dangerous learning outcomes.

Troubled about the imminent dreadful consequences, Dr. Chris Anyokwu, a teacher of African Poetry, African Literature and Literary Theory, at the Department of English, University of Lagos, in an interview, calls on the National Orientation Agency (NOA), to mount sustained campaigns on the need for students to develop a strong bond with their books, and also make conscious efforts to imbibe reading culture, while scaling down on the number of productive hours spent on social media.

“Internet poses a threat to our students, as they no longer read novels, playlets, and poems in the traditional media (the book form). They do not enjoy the synchrony of the page any more. They prefer to go online, not to read the e-copy of these books, but they are more interested in the snippets, summaries or spark notes than reading than whole book …”

Students are expected to read and keep abreast of what is happening around them. Unfortunately, that does not happen anymore with the arrival of the social media.

Also various studies have revealed that 40 per cent of Nigerian adults never finish reading a fiction book from cover to cover after leaving school. Other studies show that about 30 million Nigerians have graduated from secondary schools with poor reading skills, attributing it to the poor habit cultivated during their stay at school.

In many universities, most students do not read. The few who read occasionally, do so as a means of passing their examinations. The libraries that are meant for reading, have since been converted into browsing centres, places of reference and copying of notes as only few students are seen reading in the libraries.

Since poor reading habit is causative of the poor performance of most students in school assessments and examinations, what has government done to boost their interest in reading?

Chief Executive Officer, National Library of Nigeria (NLN), Professor Lenrie Aina has on his part remarked that joint interests and consistent campaigns by youth groups and Nigerians will ensure government prioritize the completion of the permanent national library in the nearest future.

Aina disclosed that: “In most countries, public libraries are a serious component of the education curricular based on the recognition that without such resources, it is practically impossible to improve on literacy. A functional library helps in providing information to the society in different formats in the bid to encourage and promote a good reading culture which is a sine-qua non to personal and indeed national development.

“But in Nigeria today, public libraries are kept unattractive and poorly maintained while in most cases, the infrastructural facilities are inadequate. Besides, the books in stock are out-dated just as it is a rarity to stumble on new and current journals. Indeed, reference materials, where they exist, are old and dusty.”

Following an alleged non-compliance with contractual obligations, an Arbitral Tribunal has granted an award of Thirty three million, nine hundred and eighty-eight naira, ninety-four kobo (N33, 913,988.94) to Host Integrated Services (a Facility Management Company) against Lekki Luxury Flats Property Owners and Residents Association over a terminated contract. The contract involves the facility management services of an estate with joint facilities for individual occupants in Lekki Phase 1, Lagos. Chairman of the Lekki Luxury Flats Property Owners and Residents Association, Engineer Emem Udoh was also joined in the suit.

The Tribunal which granted the claim on September 18, 2018 made the final award concerning the clause in the agreement defining the mode of payment as inserted by the Lekki Luxury Flats Property Owners and Residents Association (LLFPORA) at the commencement of the agreement.

The agreement was sequel to an invitation bid from ExxonMobil Staff Cooperative Multipurpose Society Limited for the facility management services of the Lekki Luxury Flats.

After a successful bid, there was another invitation from the ExxonMobil Co-op Limited for commercial tender for the facility management services of the Luxury flats on March 1, 2013. The matter however resulted in arbitral proceedings between the parties when Host Integrated Services(the Claimant) was served a letter of contract termination on March 14 2014 to expire on April 15 2014.

Insisting that the facility management contract was not terminated in accordance with the laid down terms and with its workers denied access into the estate in violation of the 30-day notice as stipulated in clause 7.3 of the contract, the company took the matter to an arbitral tribunal for redress.

It claimed that as at the time the contract was terminated, there were some outstanding payments due and payable to it. Specifically, the Claimant said it was entitled to payments for work done under the maintenance contract and other jobs arising from the preparation and implementation of a snag report. It maintained that LLFPORA (the Respondents) were liable to pay for the outstanding invoices for the jobs done with interests and damages, even as the envisaged 2-year contract was terminated midstream.

The Respondents however denied liability in any form and justified the termination of the facility management contract on the alleged incompetence of the Claimant. While denying the monetary claims, the Respondents further justified the contract termination on the grounds that residents of the estate refused to pay their maintenance bill as a result of complaints of incompetence by staff of the Claimant.

The Arbitral Tribunal comprising Achike Umunna (Presiding), Hon Justice E. O. Sanyaolu (Rtd.) and Sophia Abiri-Franklin commenced proceedings and after listening the parties, deliberated extensively on crucial points of law in deciding the case while taking into consideration the terms of the contract in making its final award.

Having considered and ruled on claims and counter claims before deciding that the Claimant is entitled  to the sum of Thirty three million, nine hundred and eighty-eight naira, ninety-four kobo (N33,913,988.94) being outstanding unpaid bills, the Tribunal made its decision.

The Tribunal further stated that an additional 15% will accrue on the sum from June 30 2014 until final liquidation in line with clause 7.4 of the contract between the two parties.