A few months back, this newspaper took editorial notice of sexual exploitation of female students by teachers who should stand in the place of their parents, calling it “a disquieting but neglected phenomenon” warranting “forthright discussion and prompt action.”
The tawdry phenomenon had gained national salience for a while in the late 1980s, largely through the attention it received from former first lady Maryam Babangida’s Better Life for Rural Women and allied women’s societies.
Their intervention, seen largely by a skeptical attentive public as just another front on the Babangida regime’s unrelenting crackdown on the universities, the bastion of resistance to his dictatorial rule and his agenda of self-perpetuation, soon fizzled out.
The message was unexceptionable, but the messengers had little credibility.
Now, a more credible source with real authority has put the practitioners of sexual exploitation on our university campuses on notice that they will henceforth pay a stiff penalty for their concupiscence.
Last week, the Senate unanimously passed the Sexual Harassment in Tertiary Education Institution Bill, 2016, which stipulates a jail term of five years or a fine of N5 million for any person on the faculty of a tertiary institution convicted of the offence.
Senator Omo Ovie Agege (Labour, Delta Central), who sponsored the Bill, was right to exult at its passage. “Sexual harassment has been there for so long unchecked. Finally, we have a landmark for our wives, daughters, aunties and nieces,” he said.
Campus sexploitation occurs in many guises and disguises,
In perhaps the most brazen manifestation, lecturers blackmail female students into granting them sexual favours, on pain of failing a critical examination Some lecturers even ask the unfortunate student to arrange, at her own cost, a rendezvous for her own violation.
In another common practice, some lecturers invite female students to their offices under the pretext of academic consultation or advisement, only to grope and fondle them, without their consent and without the least regard for consequences. They regard it as a “fringe benefit.”
In a more subtle but no less deplorable manifestation, some lecturers lace their classroom presentation with gratuitous sexual allusions guaranteed to make female students uncomfortable.
One line of argument in this prurient business has it that some female students dress “provocatively,” thereby inviting attention to themselves, wittingly or unwittingly. Such reasoning is untenable. Lecturers are supposed to be disciplined adults in full control of their emotions, not predators.
For every case reported, there are probably dozens that never get reported, from fear of further victimisation and shame. In a recent survey of tertiary institutions in Nigeria, the Dream Project for Africa found that three of every four students reported that sexual harassment was common on their campus, and roughly one of every three students said they knew someone who had been or was being sexually harassed, the same proportion that said they feared reporting the issue. Only one of every 12 students believed that the authorities took the issue seriously.
The case for a bill to curb campus sexploitation, then, is unanswerable.
Some will no doubt compare the frenzied haste with which the National Assembly buried allegations of sexual misconduct by three of its members during an official visit to the United States and the tenacity with which it has pursued the Sexual Harassment Bill, and conclude that there is nothing high-minded about the Bill. High-minded or not, the Bill addresses an important social issue.
In its present form, the Bill can be criticised on several grounds. First, it is predicated on the assumption that sexploitation occurs only on the campuses of tertiary institutions. This is not the case. It occurs in secondary schools and even in elementary schools. The law should, therefore, have a wider application.
Second, sexual harassment also occurs in the work place, probably in the National Assembly itself, creating a hostile environment which makes it difficult for the person being harassed to function productively. It occurs on passenger buses, and even on okada.The law ought to take into account this variety of sexploitation.
Third, the law, being one of strict liability, criminalises sexual activity between adults even if it is rooted in mutual consent. This is an overreach. Sexual activity between consenting adults cannot pass the test of a good law. I know of many a campus romance between professor and student that blossomed into a happy marriage.
Fourth, the law provides no protection for those reporting sexual harassment. A climate that offers such protection to those reporting sexual harassment will have to be created. Without it, they will not feel confident to come forward. And unless they come forward, the problem will not get the forthright attention it requires.
The Senate should address these issues before transmitting the Bill to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent. An identical Bill passed by the 7th National Assembly was sent to former President Goodluck Jonathan. Perhaps mindful of the defects I raised above, Dr Jonathan refused assent.
The 2016 Bill should not be allowed so suffer the same fate. The Senate should send a revised Bill to which the President can assent with confidence.
In whatever case, the bill should serve as a wake-up call to the university community. With the National Universities Commission providing the broad guidelines, university authorities should develop a code of conduct that defines sexual harassment in clear terms and specifies sanctions for conduct that violates it. The code will be binding on serving and new appointees, and must be rigorously enforced, without prejudice to the Sexual Harassment Bill.
Guess Who is Reading
In this space two weeks ago, I noted that the Stomach Infrastructure programme of the Ekiti State Government had all but collapsed and suggested that one obvious way of reviving it that had gone unnoticed was to round up those marauding cows and slaughter them for distribution to the faithful – the okada riders and motor park touts.
A few days later, himself the Osoko, Governor Ayo Fayose, announced that any cows found out of bounds would end sizzling in cooking pots of families across Ekiti. I can almost hear the salivation at Ado-Ekiti motor park.
Another piece I wrote back in my days at Rutam House comes to mind. I lamented how much I missed Vice President Augustus Aikhomu’s Friday afternoon news conferences through which he put a personal stamp on developments that would dominate the headlines and front pages during the week end and beyond, there being few competing materials.
Pronto, the very next Friday, the jolly mariner revived his press conferences.
I cannot complain that the column does not get executive attention.
