The Sexual Abuse of African Nuns: No Sanctuary for African Women in the Sisterhood

Introduction

Beginning with Confucius, there have been many educators who commented on the need and the value of education in order to promote the development of an enlightened and harmonious society. Others who accepted the human capital position within the context of education were Plato, and Horace Mann; they asserted the link between a society’s investment in education and the outcome of citizens who repay the society through artistic, literary, musical, social and political contributions. Additionally, Confucius believed, “society must support proper education because proper education develops good citizens who, in turn build and interact with a proper society” (Cooney, Cross, & Trunk, 1993, p 36).

Unlike African American females who were traditionally afforded more opportunities for an education over African American males, sub-Saharan African women in most circumstances were not afforded such educational opportunities for various cultural reasons and social prejudices (Okunuga, 2011). In the United States, the virulent forces of racism that deliberately marginalized African American men in particular and placed them on an unequal footing in the job market prevented them from economically being able to sustain a typical patriarchal existence. Those circumstances positioned African American females to assume an important role in the African American community as major financial contributors (Dabel, 2008).

Education in many nations has increasingly become a high priority within the context of globalized knowledge economy, as governments perceive such education will provide citizens with opportunities for higher incomes, and of course lead to economic competitiveness in the global sphere (Lauder et al., 2012). In developing areas of the world the goal maybe to provide universal education as such nations seek to give this generation of children better education opportunities than those given previous generations. Many nations in sub-Sahara Africa determined to make basic access to education a priority given the high rates of illiteracy, with the hope of lifting living standards in their nations. Nigeria for example became a signatory of the Millennium Development Goal (2015) to eradicate poverty by half in the year 2015 (Asaju, 2012). That action came about in the belief that an investment in human capital, as embodied in education, would decrease poverty (Asaju, 2012).