The Consent Workshop Understanding Sexual Grooming

Understanding Sexual Grooming

  By: Tolu Ojeshina Tolu is a development practitioner, writer, and volunteer at The Consent Workshop. She is passionate about dialogue and conversations that promote the development, advancement, and protection of women.  Sexual grooming is a preparatory process in which a perpetrator gradually gains a person’s trust with the intent to be sexually abusive. It involves laying a foundation for sexual abuse or rape by building a relationship with a victim over time. The rationale for grooming, is to ensure that there are no repercussions for sexual violence, because the victim either trusts you enough to believe abuse did not occur, or thinks reporting/ asking for help is a betrayal… Read More

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The Consent Workshop Religion and Rape Culture

Religion and Rape Culture

Consent is a voluntary affirmative response required before engaging in any physical and/or sexual activity. As simple as this is, it’s unfortunate that the idea of consent is disregarded, rejected and even frowned upon in many parts of the world. Religion has also played a huge role is the violation of consent where it concerns women. As a result, many women and girls have been subjected to inhumane treatment and stripped of their autonomy – their rights over their bodies and lives. For such a regressive postulation to have existed for thousands of years, various belief systems were put in place in different societies to ensure that it continues to thrive… Read More

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The Consent Workshop The Bystander Approach

The Bystander Approach

Society does not do a great job at condemning sexual assault publicly. This is especially in moments where we are not directly affected. We know it should not be happening, but we are slower to respond when it does not happen to us, a friend or a family member. We should not be waiting to be directly affected by tools of the patriarchy, to understand that the urgent need for it to be dismantled. Jackson Katz describes a Bystander as anyone who is not involved in the dyad of abuse but is embedded in peer culture relationships with people who might be in that situation. The general idea with this approach… Read More

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The Consent Workshop Why We Need to Get Rid of Rape Culture.

Why We Need to Get Rid of Rape Culture.

  Rape Culture is society’s refusal to recognize the recent predatory behaviour exhibited by Kodak Black towards Young Ma, the trivialization of sexual assault and unwanted sexual advances in today’s society. It is an environment that allows sexual violence to occur and one that creates justifications for when it happens. Emi Boscamp for mindbodygreen.com, explains this as all the ways we teach women to prevent rape as opposed to teaching men not to rape.  Society does not explicitly say “rape people”, but it informally educates and conditions us to see rape as a normalcy, even up to the point of making justifications as to why it happened. This is where the danger is. Once… Read More

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The Consent Workshop #NAMEANDSHAME

#NAMEANDSHAME

There are only two known sex offenders registry in Nigeria one in Lagos established in 2014 and another in Ekiti. These registries are however not updated regularly. A sex offender registry is a database containing information about convicted sex offenders. This is maintained and accessed by law enforcement to keep track of the activities of sex offenders in the community. It is necessary to have one in every state because citizens have a right to know if a sex offender resides in their neighbourhood, it is also a useful tool for law enforcement in the identification of sexual offenders. This ensures the safety of citizens. The consent workshop has launched… Read More

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