 You're welcome back to the breakfast on Tosti v Africa. Let's talk sex education for kids in Nigeria. It's a conversation that's been regarded mostly as a taboo in this part of the world, but today we'll be breaking down those barriers and having an open conversation about sex and education. Let's say good morning to our guest, the founder of Braveheart Initiative for Youth and Women, Ms Priscilla Usyabhaifu. Good morning. Thank you for joining us. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. Now when we talk about sex education and children, I want you to give us, you know, what exactly comes to mind, especially for parents and why it's regarded as a taboo topic in this part of the world? Parents, I know for those at the rural communities, they have more reservation, but with better education, we see a lot of parents. The majority of the parents we interact with, the first trigger now is abuse. The first thoughts that now come to their mind. Previously, it used to be promiscuity. But now we are beginning to see a shift from, oh, if you deal with a bad sex, then my child is going to be promiscuous to, is there a possibility of an abuse? So this discussion is very depending on the variety of wounds and different backgrounds. Tell us a little bit more about, we were talking about sex education for kids. What age are we referring to here, you know, and at what age would you advise that it's important that parents should start to have that conversation with their kids? I discussed today's focus on children. So I'm putting a description on the Nigerian's definition of a child as 17 and below. So I assume that every child is 17 and below, but we also know that even among this category, you have those that are 10, let me say one year to 10 years, then 11 to 14. Most of the time, the resistance is always on the younger children. That's when you see the resistance that come in. But it's also because of misinformation. And why do I call it as misinformation? I don't want to use word ignorance. I'm very careful. Ignorance means you do not move. But misinformation means that you know that the knowledge that you have is not accurate. So it's incorrect. And that is what is happening with sex education. Even a woman in the rural community that hears about sex education, it doesn't mean that she does not have an idea about what sex education means. But the point is that the idea she has about sex education is misinformed. And it is the misinformation that are driven in myth and misconception around the subject that have led to some of the challenges that people have today. When people have a better understanding of what it is about, then they will be able to know whether to make the choice of embracing it or accepting it. Going back to your question about what age that I think, I also think about what I would call age and propertiness of education. And this is not just about sex education. It's education in general. We know, Clef, Kelly, that if you have a son in primary two, and I have, let's assume, is five years old, and I have a son who is 12 years old and is 12. So your son is six years old and my son is 12 years old, which means my son is double of the age of your own son. Even in their basic numeracy and literacy, let's use the two popular subjects of mass and English. They are not going to be at the same level of teaching, the same level of understanding. And this is what we need to also bring into sex education because sex education is just a form of other kind of education that we do. And for me, I tell people that the best approach is sexuality education. So you may ask, so what's the difference between sex and sexuality? Sex education is just a component of sexuality education. Sexuality education is broader. You are not just dealing with the biological issues. You are also dealing with life skills, which are very important for children as they grow up because the child, as soon as you give birth to that child, that child is alive, is a living human being and definitely needs skills and knowledge to be able to survive as we live. Okay, I have lots of questions from what you've said, but I want us to go further down your answer. You earlier talked about the fact that it's not ignorance but misinformation, especially in the rural areas. Could you shed more light on the misinformation that lots of Nigerians have regarding sex education and what the accurate information is and should be? Give you a class card example. In 2012, we approached a private secondary school in Nigara. Nigara is the local government headquarters of a Koko Edo local government area in the United States. We had a grant from the International Women's Health Coalition, they are popularly known as IWAC in the US, to conduct comprehensive sexuality education for rural schools, you know, young people in rural schools. And this school was one of the schools we had approached. We wanted secondary school, not even primary, as of then, 2012. And our response was, oh, I understand that some of my students are sexually active, which I do not support, but with you coming to talk about sex education, I'm going to be dealing with a whole lot more because if more people know about sex, then there are chances that a lot more are going to try their hands on it. I'm trying to use paraphrase her. So indirectly, she stated that if we come to educate them about sex, then they may want to watch in the sex. I took time to explain to her that, from evidence, because I needed to show them what's dead and everything. And I used to myself, as a young woman, who grew up in a rural community in those states, I had information on sex. I knew about conduct as a younger girl. I knew that conduct could prevent sex. I knew about negotiation skills. So if I wanted to abstain, for instance, because all we keep hearing is telling your girls or your boys to abstain from sex, without teaching them how to abstain. So it's different with what they have, it's the methodology. What approaches are you going to put in place? With me first, you need to say what? No. And that is what we refer to as refusals skill. You also need to negotiate, because there are situations where you are going to tell the person no, and the person refuses to accept your no. They feel, oh, with a little more maybe peer pressure, a little more insensitive or induced as a case may be. OK, Priscilla, just hold on for a minute. I'm just asking what we're going to talk about. I did all this. Priscilla, can you hear me? This is my girl. Yes, clearly. We'll talk more in detail about this tactic, these skills you're talking about regarding sex education. But can we stay on course regarding this misconception, the myths that are... Information. So she had gone with her beliefs. She had religious beliefs about it. So despite my education as a case may be or information, it didn't work. So I'm not going to say that it was instant. So I left and I approached other schools. Then something happened in a school. A young girl who had a core member who was posted to her school had asked an SS3 student in that same school to come to the house to assist with some domestic work and led to attempted exploitation. I'm going to use the word sexual exploitation, tried to torture her with other consent and she had to report to a teacher in the school and it got back to the proprietress of the school. At the end of the day I was invited back to the school two years later because they had other incidents that happened that's like, oh, if we had told this person on this thing and these other approaches and by the time I was invited back, not only was I given opportunities to educate the secondary school, they asked that I please integrate primary 4, primary 5 and primary 6. It was us that were not saying okay because of the way our modules were structured, we were working with age. So even if you wanted primary 5, they needed to reach age 10 because we structured our modules in such a way that you had 10 to 14 and you now had 15 to 18. So at every point in time, age appropriateness is key. Sometimes you also don't blame them for misinformation because we do what they call information overload. So if you get a two-year-old and say condom, for instance, a two-year-old may not understand what condom is. So it's not appropriate to discuss condom at that point. So what you do is to start with building of what I call the interpersonal skill with your child. The same way you tell a child, say thank you. The same child, when you tell a child, say I am sorry. You know, the same way you tell a child, drop it. You know, your child is trying to pick something that belongs to her, but that person has to drop it. So that's how you start this communication about building autonomy. And that is one of the main benefits that we have because with bodily autonomy comes with identity, comes with self-esteem. So this is why it is very important that the mindset that people have will engage them in such a way that we can change their mindset positively. Okay. Now, I want us to talk about the male-female perspectives. Do you think that the conversation should be different to a female kid, you know, and of course compared to a male? Or should the conversation on sex education be the same across board? It's basically the same. It's just in context, looking at their identity, sexual identity, to know what and what to discuss. For instance, when we look at the anatomy of a female and the anatomy of a male, they are different. So we are not going to use the same terminologies, for instance, to describe their body parts and all that. So that's just the difference. But when you look at the principles of life skills, it's going to be the same. If you need a young girl to be assertive, you also need your boys to be assertive. And I believe you people are also having statistics of boys that are also with no self-esteem and boys that are having poor self-identity, boys that are having difficulty with communication, boys that are having difficulty with bonding with their family, either with their parents or with their guardian. So this is a conversation that has to happen across the sexes. OK, so when it comes to the homes, for parents that are watching this program right now, how would you advise mothers and fathers to begin to learn, first of all, because you can't give what you don't have, to begin to learn about sex education and how they should communicate that to their children such that they have that body autonomy that you talked about? So I normally use what I call teachable moments. You know, when the guests come into your house and then you see your child staring at your guest drink, maybe you offered the guest a drink, and then you saw the reaction. You tried to do what we call non-verbal communication with your child, and your child don't seem to get it. And then you move into verbal communication because you are seeing that moment as a teachable moment. So as parents, we also need to look for a teachable moment to pass this information. They are not your regular homework that the child comes from school, and then you say, six down, I'm going to take you through your homework. So it's first for us to identify what teachable moments are for our children and take advantage of those opportunities. But first, if we have to pass the knowledge based on what we said, it's for us to also look for opportunities. What positive is doing this morning is creating an environment, a very conducive environment for people to learn. So that is what you are doing as a media person. So there should be other opportunities either in the churches, in the community meetings, in the local group meetings, as many of us. That says you need to open your mind. So many parents in Nigeria, they need to be open. And what do I mean by being open? To online, there are so many things we already have. We need to first agree, sex education is needed. Yes, it's going to be age appropriate, but first you first have to agree that there's something that is needed. Then with that, you now have openness to not let that is going to be coming in. As you assimilate, you also take time. You know you need to process it. Because as a parent, you are coming with different ideology and mindset about these issues. So when you are able to process it, you are able to accept it first as yourself and see how it benefits your child. And then you begin to take it gradually. Also, don't forget that children learn at different speech or what we like to call it, pace. So you also need to understand the individuality of your own child. And see that, yeah, they are children that are naturally smart, that you discuss this thing once and pick it. But there are others that you know you need to take it periodically, repeatedly. And I always tell people that repetition is the law of deep and lasting impression. So you know you need to repeat it again. You have that conversation again. Take another time to have the conversation. The answer is around, you have the conversation. And that is why when we say this holistically, as you as your parent is educating your child at home, the school also creates an opportunity to have conversation around this subject. And then it continues around and then it becomes a societal educational structure. Practical tips that parents can actually learn from you right now. Practical tips on sex education. Maybe because of the field of work that I am. It's sad. I like to use the word. If you check most of the surveys that come up on the data and statistics since COVID last year, and for me, I'm worried by this data showing that because the schools were shut down and children were home, we recorded higher incidence of sexual violation of children, not just sexual, physical, all forms of violation of children. Now it brings to mind, or to you, if the schools were shut down, where were these children? They were supposed anywhere at home. And we keep saying that the family remains at home, become the first unit of what? Of socialization, of education, of bonding, of development. So are we saying that our homes are that unsafe? Because this data, you know, they are staggering. They are outrageous. And that means that we need to do far more work in our homes. So why would a woman who didn't go to work because there is COVID stay at home and the husband finally has an opportunity to be back train her? Because we also need to understand how domestic violence have a cyclical effect on even our children. And all the sex education we are talking about, when the father at home is raping the wife and the child is at home, watching how mommy is struggling with daddy when these things are happening, all the cycles of violence that we see at home. So please, as parents, parenting is intentional. And all my biological children yet, but I know the kind of, I now watch like a walk. And for me, it is sad. One of the first thing that sexual predators have done to our communities is to remove that sanity in our homes. You know, your home is supposed to be a safe environment. When you make your home unsafe, when you make the school unsafe, there are a lot of effects that that happens. Even when your child is not yet violated, you become paranoid. You want to put extra measures in place. But like we say, you are better safe than what? That's sorry. But one thing I need to encourage parents and the guidance today is to know what the benefits of sex education is. The benefits of educating your children on sexuality, on building their life skills. Because when you do this, when they have positive bodily autonomy, they have good self-esteem, they have good body image, and they are able to accept others. What do I mean by accepting others? It brings us back to the question your colleague asked about male versus female, that if I am a six-year-old girl who has an eight-year-old brother, I have a vagina, my brother has a penis. Because they have educated on sex, I do not see my brother as being abnormal, as a child, because I know I'm female, and my brother is what is male. Sex education has made me understand that my brother's biological system is different from me. Sex education brings bonding. Yes, bonding is very critical. Because when you have a good bonding with your child, it also strengthens communication. And we know that parents who exercise healthy communication with their children have a better, effective, and efficient communication, raise better children. These children are going to transition to younger girls. Okay, it's unfortunate there that we seem to have had that. I was also going to hopefully mention with the time that we have, if there were other angles that needed to be added to the conversation. Aside sex education, letting them know about their genitals and body anatomy. Very important. I think there's also things that have to be added to the conversation with regard to self-control, with regards to respect and the opposite sex and some of all of that. I think it's also lost completely in conversations concerning sex. And hygiene as well. And hygiene also. Sexual health. Yeah, but I think as with age, that's why it was great that she differentiated between the one to 10, 10 to 14, 14 to 17. So with age, some of all of that needs to be filtered in here and there. But because, I think that we've also had a very poor conversation to young males across Nigeria with regards, respect for females and for the opposite sex, for consent and some of all of that. I think that's one of the things that I feel must be also added to the conversation. I think we have her back. Mrs. Usiobaiful, can you hear us clearly? Yes, I can. Okay, so I was just gonna ask, if you thought that it was also important that we also filter in or add some extra details here and there to the sex education conversation. As kids grow up, things about consent, about hygiene and respect for the opposite sex and some of all of that. Is there also the importance that, or is that also an important part that needs to be added to the conversation with sex education? If you remember clearly, I started by talking about the need for sexuality education by not limiting it to sex because when you deal with sexuality, then you are dealing with life skills. And in life skills, you are going to learn about boundaries. It's very important that everyone, and when you teach your child about boundary, you know, behavioral patterns are not automatic. They are going to learn it works over time. A child that knows that, you know, don't cross here will probably grow up like that way. And that's why evidence you see is showing that children who have comprehensive sexuality education delay sexual debut. It's facts. There's evidence. There's proof. Globally, not just in Nigeria, that if they have proper education, if they have comprehensive sexuality education, there are chances that that child is going to delay sex until adulthood or until other time. And even if they are going to engage in sex as an adult, there are chances that they are going to engage in protecting sex. There are chances that they are not going to engage or they are not going to forcefully force others, either a girl forces a boy or a boy forces a girl. And that's where this discussion of consent comes about. And it is very important that as sex education is comprehensive, I beg you both, let's have comprehensive sexuality education. Because when it's comprehensive, you deal with all these other issues that are associated. And one way to deal with consent is by looking at patriarchy. Because consent does not just exist on its own. A lot of persons, I like to use young men. Yes, you understand that there are women that also do not obey consent, but most of the time it is men we see forcing women to have sex against their will or using other means. And although we agree that the discussion should be for everyone, but it is the toxic masculinity in our homes. Why provide me by toxic masculinity? When you have raised your son to always have his way, when you have raised your son to see the girl child, all the girls around him as second class citizens, when you have raised your son to look down on a female or any other woman around them. So when a woman says no, he's touched, his ego, his main ego is now what provoked and then they tend to take those other steps that are not just drunk, they are also criminal actions. And that is why these conversations needs to be sustained and everyone needs to understand boundaries. Everyone needs to understand consent. It's sad that when you look at statistics from the Mirabe Center, you look at reports from project alerts. You look at reports from Bravert Initiative. You look at reports from the SAC centers, the sexual assault response centers and reference centers across the country. Till date, over 70% of the cases in these centers, either sexual violence or physical violence are children. These are violence perpetrated against our children and this really is a source of worry to as many of us. The Violence Against Children survey that was conducted in the 2014 and disseminated in 2016 showed the kind of situation that Nigeria is. You know it was an emergency, but we still have not dealt with it. And COVID have come and have showed us that beyond the health crisis, we also have an SGBV crisis, a crisis within the crisis. So it's never too late. Let's start today to begin to have this conversation. Let's start today to begin to take actions because sometimes we do a lot of talking without necessarily putting the requisite action that is needed in this work. Really Priscilla, this is a very broad topic. I want to give you a scenario, something I have seen happen and I would like your expertise on how this problem should be solved. And it's not just an isolated case, it's something that happens across board. So in the household, right, a father rapes a child or a son rapes a house help or a brother rapes a sister. But the point is that the abused and the abuser live in the same house, the same vicinity. What do you advise going forward? Should they be separated? Should the child be taken away from the father? And should it be, you know, house somewhere else? Should the son be taken away? Like what should be the process and the procedures to make sure that there's not a reoccurrence, a repeat of that abuse simply because they live under the same roof? First, I like to say that incestuous rape is one of the worst form of assaults to ever happen beyond the criminality of the offense. It's, we're looking at how a society is structured from religious fundamentalism to traditional fundamentalism and all the discussions around incest as what, a taboo, as a sacrilege, as something that is abnormal and all other antecedents of incest. Regardless of whether it is father to a biological child, because there are children that are in your home that blood may not be related to you. For instance, an underage house rape, we should not even have an underage house rape in our homes. All house rape on nannies or housekeepers or whoever name that we use to them are supposed to be 18 and what, and are both. So it's already an anomaly that there is a help in the house that is a minor. That first is wrong. But to answer your question, these kind of scenarios that happen within a confined space, within the homes, my opinion is first for there to be a separation. If not for any reason for mental wellbeing, separation is very needed because you just talk about repeated offense. There may not even be a repeated offense. Imagine waking up and seeing that face every day. I'm at a stroke off with the first one but as long as the person is there and I'm seeing the person every day, the person may not be coming back to redo what has happened but for my own wellbeing, separation is the best. And that is why you see people like me push for shelters. We need more shelters in this country. Shelters are very critical places, you know? Designated shelters. What we see happening in most of these scenarios is just to pick the shelter and take the shelter. To the village. And off and edu. Yes, and often I'm wondering which you drive home, they serve as a shelter but we need shelter that are specific for these kind of issues. For instance, when we had the first shelter in this country, the Sophia's Place, the one that is run by project alerts, it was clear that it was victims of domestic violence. So the kind of shelter management in that place, they had the kind of knowledge and the requisite skills, professionalism and expertise to deal with those issues. So I really beg for shelters. In the absence of shelters, we can use alternative homes. What I mean by alternative homes is there any other relative that can take this child at this particular point in time? The best solution would have been for the abuser to be the one to go. That you know our own situation. The father who have abused will not go. So most probably it is the child who is the victim or the survivor that may need to move. But preferably it should be the abuser that should be out of that space. But the entire environment needs, definitely needs to be changed. The child or the mother or whoever is the victim can't continue to cohabit with the abuser. Now let's also talk about the importance of making or having a very, very welcoming relationship with your child so that they feel free to speak up when they are abused. Because I've also seen that that might be one of the challenges in homes where there's an uncle or there's a house help or there's an auntie who is sexually harassing a little child. But the child doesn't feel comfortable enough with their parent or doesn't feel like their parent will believe them if they speak up. So let's also talk about the importance of that. That type of relationship with your child to protect them from abuse or make them comfortable enough to share with you if they are being abused. You know we tell people that communication is not complete except there's a feedback. Unfortunately in my own situation, I had a mother that encouraged me to speak. That guess what? When I speak, I got reprimanded for speaking. We make the mistake often time to encourage parents to say give your children room to speak. But we fail to also educate them that when they speak this is how to respond or to react. Which are very critical. So as a teenage girl, I saw five attempted rape. Five. Teenager 13 to 19. And in each of these incidents, I told my mom guess what? She didn't take any action. She was happy that I spoke with her. But she blamed me. And I lived with her for many years. But when I eventually gathered the courage to speak with my sister she stood up and you know gave me the kind of response that I anticipated. Because the reason you are running to your mother as a child is because you expected words to be believed. That's one. Then to be supported. So that support is very critical. Communication must go on in hand with support. Our environment must be a supportive environment. Yes, your parents do not need to go out to go and fight. Maybe do a physical show of fights. But you know that this thing, your parents took it serious. Let me tell you something that happened one day. A neighbor attempted to sexually violate me. I fucked him off. You know, he wouldn't let a scar struggle even inflict an injury. And my mother worked with me to the neighbor's house to find out if a war happened. We got there, you know, you were expecting parents. You told the other person's parents and then you expect them to call their son. You know, let's hear their own version of the story and then you take the next step. And the mother said, oh, we are so sorry. No verse. And my mother reversed and that was it. We just got back to our house and ended the day. I felt when you meet disappointed and discouraged. And you do know what happened after then? I didn't tell her any further. Which is very dangerous because by the time you have encouraged your child to speak and the child opened up and then you react in an inappropriate way or in a judgmental way or in a further victimizing way. Yes, your parents have further victimized your children from speaking up. What were you doing there? What were you wearing? So when the teacher asked you to come to the class why did you tell the teacher you were not going? This is a child in a school. We hope we get her back. Let me have it. When the teacher called. So these are all different scenarios and that is why it is important that this communication needs to be effective, respectful communication between parents and children, between guidance and words. All right, Priscilla. So when parents now learn that they need to create an open environment for their kids to speak, what action should they take? For instance, that's the situation where your mom took you to the house of that neighbor. What should they have done? What should be the next steps? Should I have been reporting to the police? What steps should they take next? And even for the police, can we also talk about police trading, police funding? Because sometimes you take that to the police and they will tell you it's a family matter that they can't get involved. So what really should be the next steps after parents are aware that their kids have been sexually violated or there's been an attempt to do so? So in my own scenario, using personal cases, I would have expected that my mother at least confronts the young man or that the mother brings the young man to at least make a commitment. It can be a verbal commitment to say, first, I'm sorry, I apologize for what he does and then makes a pledge for it never to repeat again. And my mother gives a clear one and if it ever repeats again, this is what I'm going to do to you. And then we leave. So there are parents that get confused when these things happen. So they don't know exactly what step to take. So it depends on the context. So we don't give blanket counsel to this kind of situation because you have to look at each case. The circumstances or the scenarios that surround it. But I will always encourage parents, you can reach out to NGOs, you can reach out to social welfare officers and ministries that can guide you on the step to take. But we know that physical violence, for instance, if your child is bullied in school, you have to take it up with the management because there are every chances that your child is not the only victim to that bully. So let the management stop to their responsibilities. Your child went to school to learn. So you can't keep coming back with bruises and all the other stress of physical assault that is receiving from other students in the school. So there are times that you take it as family to family discussion. There are times you involve the authorities of the place where the incident happened. And there are times that you take legal actions. You go to the police. For police, it's sad. I have worked with the police for the past 10 years. A large part of my work and advocacy has been for the Nigerian police. If we do not, I'm saying it clearly today, if Nigerian government do not invest in case investigations, we will continue to be in this cycle that we are. Previously, I used to say administrative. No, it's not just at me now. It is case investigation in itself. In center climes, in civilized countries, in moist post-country, we understand what it is to support the administrative administration of the criminal justice system. They know that in civil fundings and trainings that you train the person is not just enough. The requisite funding need to be made available. We do too much talk as a government. They don't put the required money there. Oftentimes, we go to the police station and we complain that the investigating police officer is demanding money from us after we have made a complaint. The question is, if an IPO is assigned to a case, if at 37 years old, I have a word that is sexually violated and have gone to the police to make arrests, this police officer does not have any means of transportation to make an arrest. This police officer does not have any support in his police division to even visit the crime scene. He does not have any support from his division to take me for the requisite medical screening and all others. Then what happens is either he does not mean or he mandates me to provide the means. And these are all replicancies all across the country. Even in the city and everywhere. Unfortunately, we are out of time. I think it is also important to mention, besides the funding and infrastructure at the security level, there's also those police officers who also victim shame and victim blame instead of going ahead to investigate. But that's a whole new conversation that will take hours. But we thank you also for joining us this morning and for the work that you do in Nogara and of course in many parts of Nigeria. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us this morning and we wish you a very interesting day ahead. Have a great one. Thank you for having me. I hope our session shared more lights to other people and we'll see a safer world for our children in Nigeria. Thank you. All right. And that's where we wrap up Thursday morning's edition of The Breakfast here on Plus TV Africa, Sex Education for Kids. We hope, of course, that you've learned something and you will pass that message over to others and also to your kids. If you missed out, catch up on our social media platforms that's simply at Plus TV Africa on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. I am Annetta Felixen. Thank you for joining us today. I am Osawi Atom.