It’s a long read though, just another eye opener for married women who have young house helps in the house.No one could have imagined that 16-year-old Gloria (not real name) was just two weeks away from the delivery of a child on September 3, 2014.
“I noticed her neck was full and darker, those were the only signs I saw. So, I asked if she was pregnant. Her expression and answer showed she had no idea she was indeed pregnant,” a neighbour who unravelled the mystery of the pregnancy told Saturday Punch.
Gloria, a year one senior secondary school student, lives with his married brother unaware that she was about to become a mother. But buried deeply in the girl’s heart was a painful secret she had never told a soul.
The inquisitive neighbour was unconvinced. She approached Gloria’s sister-in-law, who also expressed the same concern that she was afraid the girl might be pregnant.
“The sister-in-law had even taken the girl to the hospital and had her urine tested for pregnancy. But the test was negative. But I insisted we take her back to hospital for a blood test instead. I even had to pay for that,” the neighbour, who pleaded anonymity, said. The test result was positive. Gloria was pregnant.
With threats, pleading and persuasion, Gloria’s brother, Obi, tried to get the truth about who was responsible out of Gloria, but the little girl was too afraid to tell the truth.
Saturday Punch decided to withhold the identity of the girl and those of her relations because she is still a minor according to provisions of the Lagos State Child Rights Law, 2007.
The same neighbour, who had been friends with the family for some years, eventually got the girl to tell the truth, which shocked the girl’s brother.
When our correspondent spoke with Gloria on Thursday, there was no sign that she could have been the mother of the child she held in her arms.
Timid and innocent, she looked at the floor as she spoke softly, delving into the account of a sexual abuse she had gone through in the last five years.
When Gloria’s brother brought her to Lagos seven years ago from their village in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, it was to give her a semblance of a better life, different from the pathetic one she was said to be living in. Their mother had just died at the time, while their aged father back in the village was not doing too well financially.
“She was living with me along with some of my friends at the time. Things were still rough for me and I was single.” Obi said.
Not long after this, Obi’s good friend from Anambra State, a trader living in Mangoro area of Lagos named Ugochukwu Okparanta, said he would take over the care of the girl to ease the financial burden off his friend while the girl would help his wife with house chores.
“I was nine when I started living with Uncle (Okparanta). But two years after I got there, he started raping me,” Gloria began. “He started one day when I was washing plates and he started to touch me in the private part and breast.”
The girl became tearful. Her voice shook and trailed off. But our correspondent assured her that she was not going to be in trouble of any kind by telling her story. Then she continued.
“He started by petting me, telling me I would like it. I refused and became afraid. Then he threatened me. He would tell me that I would be in trouble if I did not do what he wanted,” Gloria said.
Asked why she could not report the problem to her brother, the girl said she thought nobody would believe her.
“If I told Madam (Okparanta’s wife), she would say I lied against her husband,” Gloria explained. Then came one night, while her boss’ wife slept in the couple’s room, Okparanta sneaked out to the room Gloria shared with his own daughter, an older girl.
She said, “He told me to follow him to the sitting room. I obeyed. He raped me and while he did it, I was about to scream, but he covered my mouth with his hand very tightly. I was bleeding when he finished and I became more scared but he smiled and said the blood was normal.
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