The first winner of Miss Nigeria beauty Pageant,Helen Prest Ajayi, have said that the sex for grades menace dotting the Nigeria tertiary institutions is not new.

While addressing news men at the Green Girl Company’s Raising Girl Summit, 2019, that took place on Lagos Island recently, to celebrate the World Girl Child Day, the former beauty queen and lawyer, stated that because of courageous girls and social media, the dirty secret has been brought to light but this does not mean that it just started recently.

“I don’t believe that Sex for grades is more on the increase. What we can say is that it is being exposed to the light. Sex for grades is a deep dark secret that has been with us for over 40 years ago when I was in school. It is now been exposed by women who are courageous to come forward with the help of social media. Now that it is been exposed, it looks like its everywhere. But it is not just in schools. People face it when they are applying for jobs, people face it when they are applying for positions in government. It has been there. We need to enforce the laws. If we get our rule of law right, everything will fall into place. People do these things because they feel they can get away with it. Not that they feel, they know they can get away with it. Women have a greater burden of suffering. We suffer all round. Forced into early marriage, used as economic tender for families. When. a family has a beautiful girl, she is seen as an economic value to the family,” she said

Speaking further about encouraging girls to speak up, she said “Speaking up has a double edge sword. People don’t speak up because they feel that it will have no value and then they will be victimised. I advice parents to be friends with their children, communicate with your children, understand them. There is a mummy and daddy hat. You should wear that some times. And then there are friends hat, try to wear that hat too. When you are their friend, they will tell you what is happening because they know they will get the right reaction from you. The will not get things like ‘its not possible, what are you saying, shot your mouth or I don’t believe you’. They know you will believe them when they speak.”