Bolaji Aleem, the Yoruba film actress, has opened up about her experience with sexual abuse while growing up.
Speaking in a recent interview on FeelRightNews TV, Aleem recounted how she was molested at the age of nine by two men in her street.
The actress who was living with her grandmother said she did not report the incident because “I thought it was normal”.
“I was very pretty when I was younger. Older men above 35 years would ask me to come inside their houses whenever I was hawking on the streets. I was about 9 or 10 years old at that time,” she said.
“The men will play with my body. The men were pedophiles. I vividly remember 2 of them. They would play with my body and private parts and also ask me to play with their penis.
“This happened about three times but I couldn’t tell anyone because I thought it was normal. I was living with my grandma and I couldn’t explain to her what was happening because she wouldn’t understand.
“When I started getting mature, there were other men in my area who also wanted to do the same thing with me and they wanted me to come to their houses but I didn’t go. I was old enough to know what was happening.”
Aleem also shared the financial struggles affecting her career.
In June, the actress posted a video on Instagram where she broke down in tears over the poor performance of her latest film ‘Okoja Ofin’ on YouTube.
Aleem revealed she spent N4 million on production in March but has barely recovered a fraction of the cost.
“I spent N4 million to produce my most recent film in March. I shared the project online myself instead of using marketers,” she said.
“I received less than N1 million as my first payment from the project. I couldn’t bare the pain of my loss and decided to do a video crying about it online. I later received N45,000 as the second payment from the movie.
“That really affected me, but a lot of my colleagues in the industry showed their support. Another challenge is that I paid a marketer for a project. He collected my money, did not do the work, and refused to refund me my money.”
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