In an interview with TV personality Chude Jideonwo, the activist for girls’ rights said.
Ishiaku, the author of ‘I Called Him Dad,’ claims that the abuse began before she was five years old, but that her mother refused to listen to her when she complained.
“The r*pe started at age seven but he was actually using his finger on me for two years. I remember vividly when he said to me, ‘you’re not a small girl. you’re going to be five. If you tell your mother, I’ll kill you both,” she said.
“Friends dumped me. Nobody wanted to be with me. Some will say, ‘don’t go out with her. Don’t be her friend. She’s a cursed child.’ They said I’m a taboo and that I would bring bad luck to them. It cost me a lot.
“You should know your child, why she is this and suddenly became that. Don’t say, ‘oh, you’re wayward. You’re a prostitute. Cut her v*gina.’ Do you know how many times they had to tear my v*gina and put pepper?
“Sometimes it’s not the r*pe that affects or kills people. A lot of people have committed suicide. They want to speak but society would inflict more pain on you. You often find a series of a 70-year-old raping a five-year-old girl.”
Ishiaku spoke of the role of mothers in raising girl children.
She said certain attributes predispose female children to r*pe.
She also said her mother used to cut her in the v*gina as punishment — something that hunted her into adulthood.
“The day you speak out, you’re broken. When I tried to tell my mother what was happening, she pushed me. Why did she hate me so much? It’s not the r*pe that’s affecting me. I’ve helped a lot of young children,” the author said.
“I look at it as my destiny. I looked at the scars I got through my mum, how she cut my v*gina; put pepper. Those are the things that affect me till now. She said if my children asked, I should tell them she scarred me.
“I was tired. I had to go and report to an officer in the barracks. I was scared so I didn’t tell him the full story.
“My mother was still in the mortuary and this man was defiling me. He said no one could protect me anymore, threatened to kill me like he killed my mother. He r*ped me, beat me, and locked me on the balcony.”