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Dr. Yolanda George-David is a gynaecologist and doubles as a popular presenter on 92.3 Inspiration FM. Her show, “Being Real with Auntlanda” is a 1-hour counselling and empowerment talk-show aired every Saturday afternoon. City People Fashion Editor, FUNMI ISHOLA, met with the passionate Aunt Landa at the recently held Wise Women Awards for Christian women in Lagos, where she was honoured with an award; she talked about dire issues relating to sex abuse victims and sex offenders. One of those issues is the high rate of physical and sexual abuse in the society. She recalled how she made the decision to stay put in Nigeria to do this very sensitive work. She was on radio one day and asked that people who were under 18 years and had been sexually abused, should come see her one-on-one at Makoko; about 764 girls under 18 years showed up and they were all sexually abused. She then told her husband she would be in Nigeria for a very long time because the work has to be done.
How did you get into radio presenting?
I am actually a doctor, a gynaecologist; I started counselling when I started my foundation Aunt Landa’s Bethel Foundation. The first time I got on radio, I was a guest and after the show, people started calling and over time, I had three offers from TV producers to do a TV show but because I’m very shy, I refused and I later concluded that radio was the best and by that time I was already friends with Inspiration FM and it started as “Being Real With Aunt Landa”, we later started “Sharing Life Issues” and I do the weekend edition because of my busy schedule.
I am actually a doctor, a gynaecologist; I started counselling when I started my foundation Aunt Landa’s Bethel Foundation. The first time I got on radio, I was a guest and after the show, people started calling and over time, I had three offers from TV producers to do a TV show but because I’m very shy, I refused and I later concluded that radio was the best and by that time I was already friends with Inspiration FM and it started as “Being Real With Aunt Landa”, we later started “Sharing Life Issues” and I do the weekend edition because of my busy schedule.
What’s the show really about?
The show, Being Real with Aunt Landa, is a production of Aunt Landa’s Bethel Foundation. Anyone who listens to the show hears different things. Right now, we have a total of 116000 registered members- all of whom have either been sexually or physically abused. We only accept members who are broken though so many people want to join us, but if we take every body, we will lose sight of why we started. We have over 50,000 teenagers and a lot of girls who have children for their parents. Like a father rapes a daughter or a boy sleeps with his mother, cases like that, that you don’t want to hear. When we started four years ago, it was pretty difficult and we even did marches, kept talking to the government because a man would rape his daughter and after 6 months he’s granted bail. We are so, so grateful to this government, only recently it was announced that Lagos State government is pushing for life imprisonment for sexual offenders and that should show that even though we’re doing little, but little from here and little from there and with a government that listens, it usually helps.
The show, Being Real with Aunt Landa, is a production of Aunt Landa’s Bethel Foundation. Anyone who listens to the show hears different things. Right now, we have a total of 116000 registered members- all of whom have either been sexually or physically abused. We only accept members who are broken though so many people want to join us, but if we take every body, we will lose sight of why we started. We have over 50,000 teenagers and a lot of girls who have children for their parents. Like a father rapes a daughter or a boy sleeps with his mother, cases like that, that you don’t want to hear. When we started four years ago, it was pretty difficult and we even did marches, kept talking to the government because a man would rape his daughter and after 6 months he’s granted bail. We are so, so grateful to this government, only recently it was announced that Lagos State government is pushing for life imprisonment for sexual offenders and that should show that even though we’re doing little, but little from here and little from there and with a government that listens, it usually helps.
After that has been said, we also have a project called “No to abortion”. A lot of girls kill their babies and live a life of frustration, not because they want to, but because there’s nobody to help them. So what we do is, we fund your pregnancy, we take care of you and when you put to bed, we volunteer to take care of your child for the four years that you are in school and you can visit your child without the child hindering your education in anyway. We are with you after school and in four years, if you feel like you still don’t want to be a mother, then the foster parent who’s been taking care of your child now has every right to file official adoption papers for the child. We get “big sisters” and “big mummies” as we call them, to help train the children while the girls go to school. Every girl has 5 years to decide whether she wants to be a mum or not. We also have what we call “Widows’ Wardrobe”. People tend to remember widows only during Christmas, but there are widows who need food constantly. Thanks to Christian Pentecostal Mission, CPM FESTAC branch, the head Pastor is a Director of the Foundation, he gives us the space and whenever we need space for events that we can’t even afford the bills, he lets us use the open ground and people just come in to drop their issues there. We have partner churches and 200 satellite centres. We have one office in Surulere where we sit and work; in the Surulere office, every week, a minimum of 10 bags of rice gets finished and we don’t give any widow more than 2 “dericas” a week. A woman with four children lives on 2 “derica” of rice, one cup of oil and one cup of garri. Unfortunately, because we can’t afford more, that’s all we can give and it’s still enough though more widows keep coming in, so that’s how it works.
We also look for jobs for people, we empower them and the important thing is helping people cope. For example, when someone calls into the radio show and says Aunt Landa I want to kill myself, in January this year, we came up with the “Aunt Landa Suicide Watch” where we started sending text messages to people saying “please forward this message, or if you feel like killing yourself, get in touch with us on this number”. In three days of releasing our Suicide Watch numbers, 08079976707, I think we got like 2000 numbers. Now you may think that it’s not important, but I have counsellors who work with me and we interviewed every single one of them. In fact, a lady was brought to me, she had slit her wrist, she was engaged to a guy for 10 years and he woke up one day and says you’re too short, I need a tall woman and he left her 2 days to her wedding. She cut her hands and the gateman sees and remembers that they had read somewhere about us and he called. That’s the reason the woman stayed alive. It’s the power of radio and social media. It’s bigger than you can explain in few words, but that’s what we do.
Why do you actually want to work with the sexually abused girl?
Many ladies you seen on the road would put on their makeup, smiling and walking down the road. You don’t know what she’s been through. When she’s raped, she has to clean herself up and go home and pretend all is well. There is a girl that moved me when I started; she’s had three children for her father, her name is Favour. Right now, Favour is in the fourth year of the university, when I met Favour, she had fallen in love with her father, that’s “Stockholm Syndrome”; her father chased her mother for Favour to become the wife. The syndrome has to do with just accepting your fate as a rape victim and just loving the rapist. She had her father’s first baby when she was 14 so it was no big deal.
Many ladies you seen on the road would put on their makeup, smiling and walking down the road. You don’t know what she’s been through. When she’s raped, she has to clean herself up and go home and pretend all is well. There is a girl that moved me when I started; she’s had three children for her father, her name is Favour. Right now, Favour is in the fourth year of the university, when I met Favour, she had fallen in love with her father, that’s “Stockholm Syndrome”; her father chased her mother for Favour to become the wife. The syndrome has to do with just accepting your fate as a rape victim and just loving the rapist. She had her father’s first baby when she was 14 so it was no big deal.
So I get to a church and I’m telling mothers and mothers are saying God forbid. Then I call the daughters and ask them to tell their mums the story and the mums pass out! The truth is, if you call any little girl, it’s either some man somewhere has touched your breasts and even women rape boys these days. We sent a boy to India because he was sick for seven years, he was wearing diapers after being gang raped and he was bleeding. I’ve also seen a case of a daughter and mother who refused to leave their rapist father because there was no food and job and as such they didn’t have any other alternatives. We also have free medical Wednesdays for basic treatments. We also have lawyers who help; when people ask me what I do, I say I’m changing the world one person at a time.
Why do think people sexually abuse other people?
In Africa, they only talk about the abused; they don’t understand there is a perversion, that’s actually a psychological illness. A paedophile is not mentally capable of processing that this person is actually my child or too little for sex, for example, so we are always talking about the girl who’s abused and we’re not treating the men and these men go out there and continue abusing people. Because like malaria, the first time you have malaria, if you don’t treat it well, it becomes malaria +, it can go on to ++ and then +++ where the fever eventually gets into the organs. When a rapist rapes for the first time, he’s scared, he’s nice to the person, the second time, he gets bolder and the third time, he wants to rape for fun and from then, the circle goes on and on. It is an epidemic and the problem is people are too shy. When I went on air newly, people were calling, saying “this is an abomination, how can you be talking about rape on radio?”
In Africa, they only talk about the abused; they don’t understand there is a perversion, that’s actually a psychological illness. A paedophile is not mentally capable of processing that this person is actually my child or too little for sex, for example, so we are always talking about the girl who’s abused and we’re not treating the men and these men go out there and continue abusing people. Because like malaria, the first time you have malaria, if you don’t treat it well, it becomes malaria +, it can go on to ++ and then +++ where the fever eventually gets into the organs. When a rapist rapes for the first time, he’s scared, he’s nice to the person, the second time, he gets bolder and the third time, he wants to rape for fun and from then, the circle goes on and on. It is an epidemic and the problem is people are too shy. When I went on air newly, people were calling, saying “this is an abomination, how can you be talking about rape on radio?”
Someone I respect so much called me saying, “Dr Landa, this is not Brazil, here in this country, you have to actually keep it low. We have families, these girls want to have their futures”, but at the end of the day, people are bitter and from sexual abuse, I have seen other issues. I have seen a woman who was raped and gave birth to her baby, she then put an advert on Facebook entitled “Baby for Sale”. Someone thought it was baby things for sale but she was actually selling her baby for N15,000 because she hated the rapist. I don’t want to say it’s a psychotic disease outrightly, but it is a disease. Men are hunters, they want to pursue and get. A lot of men have been brutally dealt with by people they should pursue and as a man, he has to feel like he’s the boss. But when he cannot feel like he’s the boss with someone his age, he goes for someone younger or more vulnerable. That’s why I’m always fighting against pornography at home. Pornography also goes a long way to make men insatiable. No matter what the wife does, it’s not good enough because they’ve seen the porn stars do worse. Over time, they’re doing things and trying to experiment and when they cannot experiment with their wives, they do all sort of things. Even the rapist has nightmares, some of them call on to my show to confirm that they feel awful after raping someone. Like I said when you abort, it takes three days for you to heal but it’s a lifetime of healing; it’s the same thing with the rapist. They go through hell and if nobody gets to them on time for rehabilitation, they move on, pretend and mask it with different things you don’t want to think about at all.
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