Be brave: How to empower your child against sex pests

There is a depressing story that I read in the dailies last week. About 200 parents are up in arms because teachers in some schools have turned into sex pests preying on their young girls.

In one school, there is a male teacher who impregnated a girl twice. In the first instance, he lured the 12-year-old girl to the staff quarters with 'mandazi' and the second time he forced himself on her.

For some reason, the parents of the girl learned of this sad state of events when it was too late – she had conceived. Where am I headed with this story?

The society has become so rotten. As a parent, you need to empower your child when he or she is as young as even kindergarten, so that when a teacher touches her inappropriately, she tells you immediately.

I always talk to my daughter Tasha about everything. Everyday when she returns from school, I ask her everything.

"How was school? What did teacher do? What did teacher say? Who beat her? Who abused her? Who said something bad to her or something good?"

I ask a series of questions that may appear silly, but once in a while they elicit 'antenna-raising' answers.

One time, I asked her those random questions and she told me that the bus driver told her that she was very pretty. "Ati what... What do you mean by that?" I was disgusted.

"Mummm... he just said "wewe ni mrembo," my daughter tried to justify the naughty comment.

Now, as a mother that is a comment that is bound to reignite those labour pains that rocked your body many years ago. There and then I had a pep talk with her.

I told her categorically that no man except her father (I know some fathers are monsters) should make such comments about her and if it happens she should me alert me immediately.

The next day, I was in their school with her bright and early at the head teacher's doorstep. I explained to him what had happened and thank goodness he took the matter seriously and promised to investigate the said driver.

The school started a series of investigations on the driver in question and guess what, the investigations were damning. This man had a particular soft spot for small girls, but none of the pupils had ever reported it to their parents because they thought those snide comments were okay.

Apparently, the man was a certified paedophile who had been fired from another school in another county because of defiling a Class Two pupil. When the truth came out, he was fired. Can you imagine if I had not prodded my daughter about what happened in school? Parents let's open the communication lines with our kids from an early age.