The problem of young Victoria Chukwuma has been compounded by randy vicious men who took advantage of her deformity to impregnate her. Twice, she was defiled and left with pregnancies with nobody to take responsibility.

• Victoria Chukwuma with her child Photo: Sun News Publishing

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At 19, this deaf and dumb girl already has two children not because she wants to be a mother, but because some unknown men had taken advantage of her disability to exploit her sexually.

Now, she has two daughters, Grace and Chiamaka who were born January 8, 2005 and January 4, 2007 respectively.

An indigene of Ebonyi State, Victoria, who was until three years ago a JSS 3 student of the Deaf and Dumb School, Kuje one of the Area councils in the federalcapital territory, was forced out of school owing to financial crisis on the part of her parents who could no longer afford to pay her fee.

The financial crisis of her parents got so bad that they could not afford to pay for the cheapest accommodation, for this reason, they found solace in a makeshift home right inside the Karu market, a satellite town in Abuja and slept in the open.

It was while there that the evil men not only took the advantage of their poverty level to exploit them, but also took Victoria’s disability as a dumb and deaf to rape her. It was also in that market that the 19 year old put to bed her first and second babies.

As if that was not enough, Victoria and her mother, a local food seller were soon thrown out of their makeshift accommodation by officials of the Karu market. This resulted to their sleeping in the open under terrible weather condition from where a widow saw them, took pity on them and provided them a temporary accommodation in an uncompleted building.

According to the widow, Mrs. Abiola Adesete, who lost her husband four years ago, she first noticed Victoria during her first pregnancy and how she dutifully helped her mother in her food business despite her pregnancy. But the widow said she became worried when she saw Victoria with another pregnancy shortly after the first one and decided to find out what was happening

On approaching the mother, she found out that the girl never attended ante-natal clinic for one day until she put to bed because of lack of money. Not only that, she also found that Victoria never had good care and good nutrition all through her pregnancy. As if that was not bad enough, the poor girl had to resume work with her mother a day after she put to bed because her mother could not afford to hire the services of a helper.

Mrs. Adesete, who called on well- meaning Nigerians to come to the aid of Victoria and her mother and ensure that the poor girl does not fall into the hands of such mindless exploiters, who are daily on the prowl in the kind of environment that Victoria and her mother have found themselves, is also appealing to kind hearted Nigerians to save her two girls as they run the risk of being exposed to such sexual exploitation in the future.

Adesete, also a struggling widow with three children, has been using her meager resources to fend for Victoria, her two babies and old mother, a thing she cannot continue for too long.

In this interview with Daily Sun at the United Nations house in Abuja, where Victoria was invited as a case study of some of the violence against women by men, Victoria said even though she has no idea of what the faces of the men that raped her looked like, especially because she was raped at mid night on the two occasions, she is happy with her two girls.

The deaf and dumb, who spoke to Daily Sun through an interpreter from the Deaf and Dumb School, Kuje, said despite all that has happened, she would prefer to still to go back to school and continue her education instead of getting a job and called on well- meaning Nigerians who may be interested to help her in her situation, send her back to school as it has always being her dream and desire to become a nurse.

Victoria, who was not born deaf and dumb, said she became deaf and dumb at age five as a result of an early childhood illness and is the only one suffering from this condition among her siblings.