From UMMULKHAIR AKIBU, Abuja
A bill seeking to redress sexual harassment of students in tertiary institutions sponsored by the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege and Senate Leader, Abdullahi Yahaya, respectively, scaled through its second reading on the floor of the Senate.
The proposed legislation which has 27 clauses is titled, ‘A Bill for an Act to Prevent, Prohibit and Redress Sexual Harassment of Students in Tertiary Educational Institutions and for other matters connected therewith 2019.
A statement signed by the Special Assistant (Press) to President of the Senate, Ezrel Tabiowo, says that the bill proposes up to 14 years jail term, with a minimum of five years, without an option of fine for any educator who commits sexual offences against students in tertiary institutions.
The bill defines sexual offences as including sexual intercourse with a student or demands for sex from a student or a prospective student or intimidating or creating a hostile or offensive environment for the student by soliciting for sex or making sexual advances.
The bill also acknowledges other forms of sexual harassment such as grabbing, hugging, kissing, rubbing, stroking, touching, pinching the breasts or hair or lips or hips or buttocks or any other sensual part of the body of a student.
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Also included are “sending by hand or courier or electronic or any other means naked or sexually explicit pictures or videos or sex-related objects to a student, and whistling or winking at a student or screaming, exclaiming, joking or making sexually complimentary or uncomplimentary remarks about a student’s physique or stalking a student”.
Senator Omo-Agege, said: “The most effective way to deal with the offence of sexual harassment in our tertiary institutions is to penalize the very impropriety of the act, with or without consent.”
The Senator added that in tertiary institutions, sexual harassment must be defined as statutory rape with strict liability for offenders to be prosecuted easily. He, however, added, “An educator whose character is maligned is at liberty to sue for defamation under the law of defamation which is well-settled in our jurisprudence and needs no duplication in this bill, and if by a student, the student should be expelled”.
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