FAMILY TERROR

By Charles Akhimien 

Rape is defined as one person forcing another, without this person's consent and using violence or threatening violence, to have intercourse or other forms of sexual activity. The same definition is applicable if the person is violated while in a vulnerable state such as sleep, unconsciousness, intoxication, physical or mental disability. Any present or previous relationship between the parties is irrelevant.

Rape is an act of violence against women that occurs in all cultures and amongst all races. A growing trend in cases of rape is that most of them are now being perpetuated in the home, by family members. This for most women is their home where they are supposed to feel most safe. For many, ‘home’ is where they face a regime of terror and violence at the hands of somebody close to them, somebody they should be able to trust. These victimized women suffer physically and psychologically, even more so that other victims of rape, because more than the act itself it was a breach of trust. They are unable to protect themselves and their human rights are denied and their lives are stolen from them by the ever-present threat of violence.

Here is the story of Laura Hardesty, a 26 year old.

At the age of 15, I was sexually abused by a family member. I was raped, losing my virginity to my Uncle. At the time he was 35 years old and married.

It was July, and I was on summer vacation. I went to visit my Moms side of the family in Alaska. I flew into Anchorage, Alaska on the 4th of July. I had never been to Alaska before, and had never met most of my family members that lived in Alaska. I had been invited to visit by my Grandfather. I was going to stay with him and meet all my Aunts, Uncles, cousins, and even Great- Grandma. I was so excited!

After that I wish I could go into more specific detail, but I have very scattered memories of the month I was there, actually, there more flashbacks than memories.

I hadn’t had alcohol much before, but it seemed so cool that my Uncle was giving me dinks. I remember having champagne at his house while he showed me around. His wife was at work, and he took me to meet her on the way to their house. But he refused to introduce me as his niece. He told his wife I was his cousin, he told other people I was his wife or girlfriend. He had a nice house and fancy things, drove a new car. Looking back, things should have started to seem strange. He told me details about the “open relationship” he and his wife had, but it was all kind of over my head and I was happy to go with the flow so everyone would like me. He also told me how much I looked like my Dad, and how much fun he’d had spending time with my family in the past. He even told me stories about babysitting my older sister and brother before I was born. I thought I was safe, he was family, my Moms brother, he was older, and married. He just seemed like the “cool” Uncle. At 15 years old I had no idea that those things weren’t enough to keep me safe. I didn’t know I should be worried, and no one else did either.

We were all going on a family fishing trip. When my Uncle asked me to ride with him it seemed great! Cool car, cool guy and a road trip! We both drank beer during the car trip. It never occurred to me that he was drinking and driving. In the car we talked a lot, I’m pretty shy, but the beer put a big dent in that. He kept pushing me to drink more, handing me drink after drink. I tried saying no, but he’d tease me, making me feel stupid and keep giving me drinks anyway. He asked me all about school and friends; he seemed really interested in everything I had to say. I wasn’t used to this and it made me feel special. He went on and on about how pretty I was. No one had ever paid attention to me like that before; it felt good to be noticed. At one point my Uncle asked me if I was a virgin. But by now, I had figured out that he was going to think it was stupid if I said yes, so I lied. This is one of the biggest regrets I’ve ever had. I’ve struggled for years thinking that this point alone could have changed things. If I had just told the truth and said I was a virgin maybe none of it would have happened. I’ve been told many times that it wouldn’t have changed things, but I still struggle with feeling like that lie made it my fault. The lie that changed my life forever.

After that things really get fuzzy. I was in numerous bars, and he had stepped things up to hard liquor. I’ll never forget his drink, rum and coke. He started pushing drinks with double shots in them and that was it. I vaguely remember an elevator ride. The next thing I remember was waking up in a motel room. I was naked and there was blood all over the white sheets and I had no idea why. I was so confused and sick; I went straight to the bathroom and vomited. After that I began looking for my clothes. I couldn’t find my underwear. Somewhere along the way my Uncle woke up. I asked him what happened, and he told me that I had invited him into my bed. He asked me if I was sore, I didn’t understand why. I got sick again. Then he gave me back my underwear. I asked what the blood on the sheets was from and he said he didn’t know, he even asked me if I had started my period. I was stunned. When I started to put things together I felt nothing, not mad, not sad, nothing. I never cried. I asked him if he used a condom. He said he hadn’t, I was instantly worried I was pregnant. I told him I had been a virgin, explaining I hadn’t started my period, he had taken my virginity. He reasoned with me that he would never have done it if he’d known that I was a virgin. After that I took a shower so hot my skin turned bright red. I felt so dirty, no amount of soap and hot water seemed to be enough. I also noticed a cut on my head. But after that I was just vacant inside.

(Laura is a survivor and a member of the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network (RAINN) Speakers Bureau).

Tales such as these are becoming increasing commonplace all over the world, as violence against women perpetuated by family members is on the rise.

These acts of violence against women represent the most egregious infringement on human rights in the 21^st century. In a world of so much sophistication and technological advancement, violence against women is an anachronism. To eradicate such acts we have to take them just as serious as racism is taken. My mother always used to say “women are like flowers”. Indeed women are flowers that need to be handled and treated delicately. Thus protecting a woman is the decent thing to do; the only thing to do!

MEASURING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: STATISTICAL TRENDS

All over the word, violence is on the increase. Since the early 1990s, but recorded assaults and sexual assaults have both increased steadily in the past 10 years by over 40 percent and 20 percent respectively. The rate of aggravated assault appears to have contributed to the marked rise in recorded assault, and for sexual assault the rate of increase was greater for children aged less than 15 years, with increases almost double that of the older age group.

Measures of sexual violence

Data on other categories of violent crime are arguably less reliable for a number of reasons. First, some crimes are not reported to police, and violent crimes are particularly affected by a general reluctance to report. Estimates from Australian Bureau of Statistics victimisation surveys have suggested that as many as two-thirds of such crimes, especially sexual assaults against women are not reported. Of the alleged crimes that are reported, some may end up not being recorded by the police. 

Victimisation surveys are another source of trend data used to interpret patterns in crime. However, self-reported victimisation data have their own inherent problems. These are largely related to issues of recall and, especially for sensitive topics such as sexual assault, an unwillingness to relate an experience of violence. With the use of appropriate methodological approaches, victimisation surveys are considered to better estimate the extent of violent crime occurring in the population, as they capture not only those people who have reported an incident of crime, but also a proportion of those who did not.

Reporting Sexual assault

The prevalence of sexual assault is also reported to be increasing. Since 1995, the rate of recorded sexual assault increased by 22 percent, from 72.5 per 100,000 people in 1995 to 88.4 in 2006. Most victims of sexual assault are female and few report the assault to police. According to Farrington, Langan and Tonry (2004), victimisation survey data from the late 1990s suggest the propensity for females to report sexual assault is increasing. An increase was also observed in the percentage of women who reported any experience of sexual assault that occurred since the age of 15 (16% in 2005 up from 9% in 1996).

These statistics while they represent a cause for concern also give us a reason to hope, because although the prevalence of sexual assault is on the increase, more and more females are reporting cases of sexual assaults.

This represents a significant paradigm shift because hitherto women would simply not report cases of assault against them for fear of stigmatization. A variety of other factors also appeared to endorse a culture of silence and denial, as many feared attitudes that would blame them for provoking an incident or feared the loss of their reputation as a result of complaining. Now though times are changing as women are becoming more aware of the guidelines, mechanisms and institutions of redress.

BY DR CHARLES IMMANUEL AKHIMIEN

THE PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF RAPE

Rape is defined as one person forcing another, without this person's consent and using violence or threatening violence, to have intercourse or other forms of sexual activity. The same definition is applicable if the person is violated while in a vulnerable state such as sleep, unconsciousness, intoxication, physical or mental disability. Any present or previous relationship between the parties is irrelevant.

The effects of rape can be both physical/biological and psychological trauma.

Physical impact of rape

Physically documented symptoms of rape include: vaginal and anal bleeding, pain, bruises and scars on the body, irritation and tenderness in the vaginal area, and sometimes tears in the vaginal-rectal area. Others are: subsequent painful sexual intercourse, urinary tract infections, dysfunction of the hip and legs, the contraction of numerous sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS and pregnancy.

Pregnancy from rape

Pregnancy may result from rape. The rate varies between settings and depends particularly on the extent to which non-barrier contraceptives are being used.

A 1996 longitudinal study in the United States of over 4000 women followed for three years found that the national rape related pregnancy rate was 5.0% per rape among victims aged 12–45 years, producing over 32,000 pregnancies nationally among women from rape each year.

A study of adolescents in Ethiopia found that among those who reported being raped, 17% became pregnant after the rape, a figure which is similar to the 15–18% reported by rape crisis centres in Mexico.

Experience of coerced sex at an early age reduces a woman's ability to see her sexuality as something over which she has control. As a result, it is less likely that an adolescent girl who has been forced into sex will use condoms or other forms of contraception, decreasing the likelihood of her not becoming pregnant.

Sexually transmitted diseases

Rape sex can increase the risk of transmitting HIV. In forced vaginal penetration, abrasions and cuts commonly occur, thus facilitating the entry of the virus through the vaginal mucosa. Adolescent girls are particularly susceptible to HIV infection through forced sex, and even through unforced sex, because their vaginal mucous membranes have not yet acquired cellular density sufficient to provide an effective barrier that develops in the later teenage years.

For rape victims the more common consequences of sexual violence are those related to reproductive health, mental health, and social wellbeing. Though the psychological effects are potentially more life altering for the victim, the physical effects are just as adverse and are pretty much immediate.

BY Dr. CHARLES IMMANUEL AKHIMIEN

REFERENCES

Eby, K; Campbell, JC; Sullivan, CM; Davidson Ws, 2nd (1995). "Health effects of experiences of sexual violence for women with abusive partners". Health Care for Women International 16 (6): 563–576. doi:10.1080/07399339509516210. PMID 8707690.

Collett, BJ; Cordle, CJ; Stewart, CR; Jagger, C (1998). "A comparative study of women with chronic pelvic pain, chronic nonpelvic pain and those with no history of pain attending general practitioners". British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 105 (1): 87–92. doi:10.1111/j.1471-0528.1998.tb09356.x. PMID 9442168.

Yuzpe, A. Albert; Smith, R. Percival and Rademaker, Alfred W. (April 1982). "A Multicenter Clinical Investigation Employing ethinyl estradiol combined with dl-norgestrel as a Postcoital Contraceptive agent". Fertility and Sterility 37 (4).

WHY DO MEN RAPE?

Rape is a sad fact of life across cultures. Internationally, the incidence of rapes recorded by the police during 2008 varied between 0.1 in Egypt per 100,000 people and 91.6 per 100,000 people in Lesotho with 4.9 per 100,000 people in Lithuania. Rape is likely more common, however, because rapes often go unreported. Researchers estimate that 67–84% of rapes are not reported (Greenfield, 1997; Kilpatrick et al., 1992). According to the American Medical Association (1995), sexual violence, and rape in particular, is considered the most underreported violent crime.

When part of a widespread and systematic practice, rape and sexual slavery are recognized as crimes against humanity and war crimes. Rape is also recognized as an element of the crime of genocide when committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a targeted ethnic group.

Although other forms of rape occur (e.g., male– male rape), this article focuses on the rape of women by men. Rape is typically defined, and defined in this article, as the use of force or

threat of force to achieve penile-vaginal penetration of a woman without her consent (Kilpatrick et al., 1992; Thornhill & Palmer, 2000).

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RAPE

Various aspects of rape have been discussed thoroughly all around the world. But very little time has been taken to know the “why” of rape. Why do men rape? What is the psychology behind rape? To do achieve this, we shall specifically look at five types of rapists (or contexts of rape):

Disadvantaged Men

The first hypothesized rapist type includes men who are motivated to rape if they have no other means of securing copulations. This may be referred to as the disadvantaged male hypothesis.

This hypothesis also has been referred to as the mate deprivation hypothesis. It is supported by data indicating that rapes are committed disproportionately by men with low socioeconomic status.

Specialized Rapists

Another type of rapist may be the specialized rapist. Men in this group are distinguished by being sexually aroused by violent sexual stimuli. These men may possess a psychology that produces differences in sexual arousal in response to depictions of rapes versus depictions of consensual sex. Because rape carries high potential costs for the rapist, particularly if caught in the act, rapists with a psychology that motivated quicker arousal and ejaculation during rape might have been more successful than men who did not possess such a psychology.

Support for the existence of this hypothesized group has been generated by investigating whether men are aroused by depictions of rape versus depictions of casual sex. Meta-analyses indicate that convicted rapists demonstrate greater sexual arousal to scenes of sexual coercion involving force than do non-rapists. Specialized rapists also might possess mechanisms that cause them to evaluate the sexual attractiveness of rape victims differently than the sexual attractiveness of consensual partners.

Opportunistic Rapists

The third hypothesized rapist type is the opportunistic rapist. These men generally seek out receptive women, but might shift to sexual coercion and rape if women are not receptive, or if the associated costs, such as injury or retaliation by the victim, the victim’s family, or society, are particularly low. All rapists are predicted to be attuned to a potential victim’s vulnerability, but an opportunistic rapist is especially so. The universality of laws and societal norms prohibiting rape indicates an appreciation that men are  more likely to rape when the costs are low (Palmer, 1989; Thornhill & Palmer, 2000).

 The fact that rapes regularly occur during wartime has been presented as evidence of the assessment of victim vulnerability and decreased likelihood of detection. Men in war are likely to have lowered costs of committing rape, because punishment or retaliation is less likely.

Support for this hypothesized type may be seen in research demonstrating that women with family members,

particularly adult male family members, living nearby are much less likely to be physically assaulted by their partner. This suggests that potential rapists are attending to the probability of retaliation by a victim’s adult male family members.

High-Mating-Effort Rapists

A fourth hypothesized rapist type is the high mating- effort rapist. High-mating-effort rapists, in contrast to other types, such as disadvantaged rapists, appear to be more sexually experienced. These rapists may be characterized as aggressive, dominant, and having high self-esteem. Such rapists often may be characterized as psychopathic.

Although most men appear to deploy mating strategies according to environmental contexts, psychopathic men deploy a high-mating-effort strategy in most contexts, pursuing many partners with little investment, and using coercion and rape when non-coercive tactics fail.

Also, the risk of date rape is greater when the man initiated the date, spent money on the woman, and provided transportation (Muehlenhard & Linton, 1987). Perceived relative deprivation, in which an individual’s (high) expectations about having sex are not satisfied also may play a role in the sexually coercive behaviour of high-mating effort men.

Partner Rapists

A final hypothesized rapist type includes men motivated to rape their partners under conditions of increased “sperm competition risk”. Sperm competition is the competition that can occur between the sperm of different males to a female’s eggs (Parker, 1970).

Rape in response to increased risk of sperm competition is most likely to occur when a man learns or suspects that his long-term partner recently has been sexually unfaithful.

Partner rapes comprise a surprisingly substantial proportion of reported rapes. Between 10% and 26% of women report experiencing rape in marriage (Russell, 1990; Watts, Keogh, Ndlovu, & Kwaramba, 1998). Women are particularly likely to be raped by their partner during a breakup instigated by men’s concerns about their partner’s infidelity. Until very recently, it was not considered a crime if a man forced his wife to have sex with him. The right of men to sexual access to their partner was considered absolute, and only relatively recently have men been prosecuted for raping their wives.

There is no excuse for rape. Rape is an extremely evil phenomenon that must be discouraged in the strictest terms. But in order to stop this scourge of rape, it is important to understand the psychology of rape, only then can we possibly eradicate this evil for good.

BY CHARLES AKHIMIEN

REFERENCES

Greenfield, L. (1997). Sex offenses and offenders. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice.

Kilpatrick, D., Edmunds, C., & Seymour, A. (1992). Rape in America. Arlington, VA: National Victim Center.

Muehlenhard, C. L., & Linton, M. A. (1987). Date rape and sexual aggression in dating situations: Incidence and risk factors. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 34, 186–196.

Russell, D. E. H. (1990). Rape in marriage (Rev. ed.). Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Sanday, P. R. (1981). The socio-cultural context of rape: A cross-cultural study. Journal of Social Issues, 37, 5–27.

Thornhill, R., & Palmer, C. P. (2000). A natural history of rape. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Thornhill, R., & Thornhill, N. (1983). Human rape: an evolutionary analysis. Ethology and Sociobiology, 4, 137–173.

WOMEN BLAMING WOMEN

Sexual harassment as defined by The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in its guidelines is:

‘’Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when:

·         Submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual's employment, or

·         Submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as a basis for employment decisions affecting such individual, or

·         Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.’’

Unwelcome Behaviour is the critical word. Unwelcome does not mean "involuntary".

A victim may consent or agree to certain conduct and actively participate in it even though it is offensive and objectionable. Therefore, sexual conduct is unwelcome whenever the person subjected to it considers it unwelcome. Whether the person in fact welcomed a request for a date, sex-oriented comment, or joke depends on all the circumstances.

Here are some examples of what constitute sexual harassment:

·  Actual or attempted rape or sexual assault.

·  Unwanted pressure for sexual favours.

·  Unwanted deliberate touching, leaning over, cornering, or pinching.

·  Unwanted sexual looks or gestures.

·  Unwanted letters, telephone calls, or materials of a sexual nature.

·  Unwanted pressure for dates.

·  Unwanted sexual teasing, jokes, remarks, or questions.

·  Referring to an adult as a girl, hunk, doll, babe, or honey.

·  Whistling at someone.

·  Cat calls.

·  Sexual comments.

·  Turning work discussions to sexual topics.

·  Sexual innuendos or stories.

·  Asking about sexual fantasies, preferences, or history.

·  Personal questions about social or sexual life.

·  Sexual comments about a person's clothing, anatomy, or looks.

·  Kissing sounds, howling, and smacking lips.

·  Telling lies or spreading rumours about a person's personal sex life.

·  Neck massage.

·  Touching an employee's clothing, hair, or body.

·  Giving personal gifts.

·  Hanging around a person.

·  Hugging, kissing, patting, or stroking.

·  Touching or rubbing oneself sexually around another person.

·  Standing close or brushing up against a person.

·  Looking a person up and down (elevator eyes).

·  Sexually suggestive signals.

·  Facial expressions, winking, throwing kisses, or licking lips.

·  Making sexual gestures with hands or through body movements.

While a significant number of women in Africa are in the workforce, little is known about the extent to which sexual harassment persists in the workplace, the kinds of actions that are taken when it occurs and whether working women are even aware of possible actions they can take. The small amount of available evidence suggests that sexual harassment in the workplace continues to be a common occurrence, typically perpetrated by a person in a position of authority; the majority of women do not take action or lodge an official complaint for fear of being dismissed, losing their reputation or facing hostility or social stigma in the workplace.

By and large, the topic of sexual harassment is initially met with discomfort, denial and fear of reprisals and some judgmental attitudes about women provoking the incident. At the same time, further probing suggested that women perceived sexual harassment as normal behaviour, an occupational hazard, and even harmless.

Sexual harassment as “normal” and “harmless

Many women view sexual harassment to be a normal and harmless practice, a natural part of a working woman’s life and rarely an issue requiring complaint or action.

These are some responses from a study done amongst 137 healthcare personnel in Kolkata, India.

“Women will study and enter various professions. And then men will behave in this manner [smiling]. We have accepted this is how things will continue.”

                                                                 (Doctor, age 30, government hospital)

“Only a few do this [unwanted touching] so it does not matter”.

                                                                (Doctor, age 25, government hospital)

“This is harmless fun that they have… it will stop with time”.

                                                                (Doctor, age 35, private hospital)

Discomfort, denial and fear

Exploring the topic of sexual harassment in the workplace was a challenging task. A vast majority of women don’t want to discuss the issue. Their discomfort in addressing the topic is evident from the fact that most women who have been harassed in one way or the other refer to it as “that thing”.

Many of them are initially reluctant to discuss the issue of sexual harassment and many denied that incidents of harassment occurred at their current workplace.

Also, some women have fears about discussing sexual harassment for fear of losing their jobs. For example, women employed on daily wages or on contract are particularly reluctant to engage on this issue. They say that sexual harassment was not a priority (compared to obtaining permanent employment).

Women blaming women

By far the most puzzling is the fact that some women have suggested that while sexual harassment at work is provoked by the woman herself, with statements like “if a woman says there is sexual harassment, then I will find out about her behaviour or her dressing”.

Despite the number of women are being sexually harassed at work, few women ever take and complain to their supervisors or to management. Actions taken in these cases were, by and large, indirect and rarely involved confronting the perpetrator or taking action to dismiss the perpetuator.

A variety of reasons appeared to endorse a culture of silence and denial. Most women were not aware of the guidelines and complaints mechanisms/formal institutions of redress. Many feared attitudes that would blame them for provoking an incident or feared the loss of their reputation as a result of complaining. They also recognised their relatively powerless positions and feared job-related discrimination, including dismissal, and withholding of promotions and income.

There is no excuse or rationalisation for sexual harassment in the workplace. It is wrong and women all around must wake up to the fact that it is an infringement on their human rights. They need to understand what constitutes harassment and adopt a no-tolerance approach to it, and seek redress, and above all, they should never blame themselves or other women for any acts of sexual harassment.

BY CHARLES AKHIMIEN

WOMEN ARE FLOWERS

Violence against women, in its various forms, is endemic in communities and countries around the world, cutting across class, race, and age, religious and national boundaries. According to the United Nations Declaration, violence against women includes “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life (United Nations, 1993)”.

It is disconcerting to still see acts of domestic violence against women especially in the 21^st century, and particularly startling is the fact that most of these acts are perpetuated in the home where women are supposed to feel most safe. For many, ‘home’ is where they face a regime of terror and violence at the hands of somebody close to them – somebody they should be able to trust. Those victimized suffer physically and psychologically. They are unable to make their own decisions, voice their own opinions or protect themselves and their children for fear of further repercussions. Their human rights are denied and their lives are stolen from them by the ever-present threat of violence.

There is no one single factor to account for violence perpetrated against women.

Several complex and interconnected social and cultural factors have kept women particularly vulnerable to the violence directed at them, all of them manifestations of historically unequal power relations between men and women. Factors contributing to these unequal power relations include: male belief in their inherent superiority, socioeconomic, cultural and religious factors, and parental influences.

In most societies, especially in Africa, women are view as second-class, second-rate and good enough only for procreation. As a result, women are not respected and are viewed with disdain.

Growing up in suburban Nigeria, you could clearly see that from very early on women are treated as lesser individuals. In the home for instance, the girl child is made to do chores like washing the dishes, while the male child watches television or goes outside to play football.  This subconsciously tells the male child that he is superior to the female child and as such creates a feeling of undue power. This feeling lingers and is not helped by what the male child sees on a daily basis. In many societies, children see violence against women as the norm and a means to exert this feeling of ‘power’ hitherto acquired.

 In several countries in the world including, but not limited to, Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Turkey, women are killed in order to uphold the “honour” of the family. Any reason – alleged adultery, premarital relationships (with or without sexual relations), rape, falling in love with a person of whom the family disapproves –are all reason enough for a male member of the family to kill the woman concerned.

Not surprisingly violence against women exhibits a vicious cycle, as studies have shown that women who as children witnessed their mothers being abused are twice as likely to be abused themselves later in life. This is simply because such a woman would find it difficult to easily spot the early, tell-tale signs of domestic violence.

I think that by far the most important factor in predicting domestic violence against women is parental influence. Parents should know better and teach their young boys to respect girls even at an early age. Although the male sex is undoubtedly stronger physically, that doesn’t translate to superiority.

Lastly women owe it to themselves to protect themselves against domestic violence. This is by no means easy because domestic violence is usually compounded by certain factors such as the presence of children. But women must realize that they cannot under any circumstances endure any form of mental, economic, emotional and physical abuse from their husbands in the home. They must speak out and seek help. Domestic violence is one of the most chronically underreported crimes. It is still not receiving as much attention as it should.

My mother always used to say “women are like flowers”. Indeed they are flowers that need to be handled delicately, and protecting a woman is chivalrous and the right thing to do. If only most males were brought up this way, things would be very different.

BY CHARLES IMMANUEL AKHIMIEN

I HAVE NO CHOICE

Adaobi is a 19 year old girl in suburban Lagos in Nigeria. Sitting in the recovery room of the maternity ward, she stares into space, eyes filled with tears of regret. She has many things on her mind, topmost of all the child she just gave away. She lacks the means to care for her sufficiently and had entered a contract she was told. The couple she gave her child to is a nice, happy, urbane couple who have been unable to conceive for seven years.

“I have no choice” she says. You see, Adaobi is poor and leaves with her uncle who abuses her regularly.  She has lived with him since both her parents died in a car accident ten years ago. She was in her last year of secondary school when her uncle informs her that he would not be paying her university fees, and she desperately wants to go to university. She is desperate. Subsequently she learns through a friend, of young, rich couples who have been unable to conceive for several years are looking for girls to act as surrogate mothers. She discovers one such couple and subsequently enters into an agreement.  Ada subsequently becomes pregnant by artificial insemination and is registered for antenatal at a specialized clinic. All her needs are taken care of for the period she is pregnant. As the delivery date approaches, she becomes sadder and sadder because she has developed a strong bond with “Charles” (she’s named the baby Charles in her head). When she goes into labour, she checks into the clinic, where she gives birth to a baby boy and immediately the child is taken to the young, couple waiting outside.

She has given away her child and now she is free to go to university because she can now afford it. Moreover she couldn’t possibly keep the child, because she can barely take care of herself, not to talk of another human being. “It’s for the best she says”, or is it?

This is the picture increasingly seen in many African countries. Young girls are acting as surrogate mothers and giving up their newborns to young, rich couples, when they previously simply wanted to abort their pregnancies.

Undoubtedly, surrogate motherhood is a very controversial issue. In many cases, the surrogate bears the child for the contracting couple, willingly gives up to them the child she has borne, and accepts her role with no difficulty. In those cases, the contracting couple views the surrogate with extreme gratitude for helping their dream of having a child come true. The surrogate also feels a great deal of satisfaction, since she has in effect given a “gift of life” to a previously infertile couple. But in some cases that have been well publicized in the media, the surrogate wants to keep the child she has borne and fights the contracting couple for custody. What began as a harmonious relationship between the couple and the surrogate ends with regrets about using this type of reproductive arrangement.

Surrogacy itself is not new. The Old Testament records two incidents of surrogacy (Gen. 16:1-6; 30:1-13), and it appears that use of a surrogate to circumvent female infertility was an accepted practice in the Ancient Near East^. What makes today’s surrogacy new is the presence of lawyers and detailed contracts in the previously very private area of procreation. Today, surrogacy does not normally involve any sophisticated medical technology. Normally conception is accomplished by artificial insemination, though in some cases in vitro fertilization is used to impregnate the surrogate. In the latter cases the contracting couple normally provide both sperm and eggs, so that the surrogate mother is not the genetic mother.

Problems with Surrogate Motherhood

Surrogacy Involves the Sale of Children. Certainly the most serious objection to commercial surrogacy is that it reduces children to objects of barter by putting a price on them. Most of the arguments in favour of surrogacy are attempts to avoid this problem. Opponents of surrogacy insist that any attempt to deny or minimize the charge of baby-selling fails, and thus surrogacy involves the sale of children. This violates the Thirteenth Amendment that outlawed slavery because it constituted the sale of human beings. It also violates commonly and widely held moral principles that safeguard human rights and the dignity of human persons, namely that human beings are made in God’s image and are His unique creations. Persons are not fundamentally things that can be purchased and sold for a price. The fact that proponents of surrogacy try so hard to get around the charge of baby-selling indicates their acceptance of these moral principles as well. Rather than the debate being over whether human beings should be bought and sold, it is over whether commercial surrogacy constitutes such a sale of children. If it does, most people would agree that the case against surrogacy is quite strong. As the New Jersey Supreme Court put it in the Baby M case, “There are, in a civilized society, some things that money cannot buy….There are values…that society deems more important than granting to wealth whatever it can buy, be it labor, love or life.”⁵ The sale of children, which normally results from a surrogacy transaction (the only exception being cases of altruistic surrogacy), is inherently problematic. This is so irrespective of the other good consequences the arrangement produces, in the same way that slavery is inherently troubling, because human beings are not objects for sale. Surrogacy Involves Potential for Exploitation of the Surrogate. Most agree that commercial surrogacy has the potential to be exploitative. The combination of desperate infertile couples, low income surrogates, and surrogacy brokers with varying degrees of moral scruples raises the prospect that the entire commercial enterprise can be exploitative.

Surrogacy Involves Detachment from the Child in Utero. One of the most serious objections to surrogacy applies to both commercial and altruistic surrogacy. In screening women to select the most ideal surrogates, one looks for the woman’s ability to give up easily the child she is carrying. Normally the less attached the woman is to the child the easier it is to complete the arrangement. But this is hardly an ideal setting for a pregnancy. Surrogacy sanctions female detachment from the child in the womb, a situation that one would never want in any other pregnancy. This detachment is something that would be strongly discouraged in a normal pregnancy, but is strongly encouraged in surrogacy. Thus surrogacy actually turns a vice — the ability to detach from the child in utero — into a virtue. Should surrogacy be widely practiced, bioethicist Daniel Callahan of the Hastings Center describes what one of the results would be: “We will be forced to cultivate the services of women with the hardly desirable trait of being willing to gestate and then give up their own children, especially if paid enough to do so…. There would still be the need to find women with the capacity to dissociate and distance themselves from their own child. This is not a psychological trait we should want to foster, even in the name of altruism.” Surrogacy Violates the Right of Mothers to Associate with Their Children. Another serious problem with commercial surrogacy might also apply to altruistic surrogacy. In most surrogacy contracts, whether for a fee or not, the surrogate agrees to relinquish any parental rights to the child she is carrying to the couple who contracted her services. In the Baby M case, the police actually had to break into a home to return Baby M to the contracting couple. A surrogacy contract forces a woman to give up the child she has borne to the couple who has paid her to do so. Should she have second thoughts and desire to keep the baby, under the contract she would nevertheless be forced to give up her child. Of course, this assumes the traditional definition of a mother. A mother is defined as the woman who gives birth to the child. Society never before needed to carefully define motherhood because medicine had previously not been able to separate the genetic and gestational aspects of motherhood. It is a new phenomenon to have one woman be the genetic contributor and a different woman be the one who carries the child. There is debate over whether genetics or gestation should determine motherhood. But in the great majority of surrogacy cases, the surrogate provides both the genetic material and the womb. Thus, by any definition, she is the mother of the child. To force her to give up her child under the terms of a surrogacy contract violates her fundamental right to associate with and raise her child.¹¹ This does not mean that she has exclusive right to the child. That must be shared with the natural father, similar to a custody arrangement in a divorce proceeding. But the right of one parent (the natural father) to associate with his child cannot be enforced at the expense of the right of the other (the surrogate). As a result of this fundamental right, some states that allow a fee to be paid to the surrogate do not allow the contract to be enforced if the surrogate wants to keep the child. In these states, any contract that requires a woman to agree to give up the child she bears prior to birth is not considered a valid contract. This is similar to the way most states deal with adoptions. Any agreement prior to birth to give up one’s child is not binding and can be revoked if the birth mother changes her mind and wants to keep the child. Many states that have passed laws on surrogacy have chosen to use the model of adoption law rather than contract law that essentially says “a deal’s a deal.” The problem with allowing the surrogate to keep the child is that it substantially increases the element of risk for the contracting couple. They might go through the entire process and end up with shared custody of a child that they initially thought was to be all theirs. To many people, that doesn’t seem fair. But to others is it just as unfair to take a child away from his or her mother simply because a contract states that she must.

Surrogate motherhood can be viewed as a classic social problem, which this century must come to terms with. But till then, we will continue to see many more cases of adaobi and Baby Charles.

BY: CHARLES AKHIMIEN