Child Abuse – Epilogue
*Epilogue*
My father’s lawyers tried all they could in court to prove he wasn’t guilty of the charges levelled against him by saying he had a history of mental illness and my claims were also as a result of the mental illness I must have inherited from him. They even went as far as pleading with the judge to take me and my dad to a mental home instead. At some point I was afraid I was going to be locked up in a psychiatrist hospital but thank God for the tests carried out on me and the scars on my body. He was found guilty and sentenced to thirty years imprisonment with hard labour. He later died in his third year there. Francis on his part was found guilty of murder. He was sentenced to death by hanging and before he was hung, it was reported that every day he spent in prison was like hell for him, he got raped every single day by men who were just like him. it got to a point that he almost committed suicide, he prayed for death and it found him when at last he was hanged.
Anita and Derek got married in a most beautiful way, we all lived together even when they gave birth to their own child, a son. My grand-parents seldom came to see me. I was made to go to Oxford University in UK for my university education even though I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay with my kid brother and parents.
I became a Girls’ Right Activist after my university education when I came back to Nigeria and realised there were many girls going through the same stuffs I went through. I couldn’t let that happen, I went from school to school, town to town, city to city, educating girls on their rights and how they shouldn’t keep silent about any form of abuse they were going through. They deserve to be heard and helped. I provided scholarship to as many as I could, sheltered some just the same way Annie and Derek did for me.
I thank God for my struggles and where I have been through. His grace sustained me, saw me through and gave me a home, a family and a voice which can be heard far and wide.
===
More interesting stories available on Topster Stories App
*Anita POV*
IF I told you I don’t bless God for making me adopt that girl I’d be lying. She brought so many blessings to my home after we adopted her. Favours poured in from every angle and before we knew it, we were being used as an example of humanitarian couples all over the country. The evil men do surely do catch up with them no matter how hidden it is now, someday, It will surely be revealed. My baby girl became a poet and an activist for girls passing through the same stuffs she did and I am so proud of her. She will be getting married next month and I just can’t help but thank God for the man she is going to marry too.
Andre was her classmate who taunted her so much in high school. He told me how he regretted everything he did after she left. He actually liked her then and that was the reason he did all that, just to find excuses to talk to her. Well he is a good guy too, I and Derek are going to give them the best during their wedding for sure.
