Lecturers Say NO To Sexual Harassment Bill

Lecturers Say NO To Sexual Harassment Bill

It seems lecturers feel they have a right to sexually harass female students as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has reacted to the 2016 sexual harassment bill before the senate, saying it will disturb the autonomy of the University senate bodies. 

President of ASUU, Biodun Ogunyemi, said this at a public hearing on the bill, organised by the senate committee on judiciary, human rights and legal matters.

It is a bill sponsored by Ovie Omo-Agege (Delta Central), co-sponsored by 57 other Senators.

The bill aims at criminalising sexual harassment in tertiary institutions, and among other things, proposes a five-year jail term for lecturers found guilty of sexual harassment of students.

Now, lecturers want to use the 'supposed' autonomy of tertiary institutions as an excuse to hide their sexual 'engagements' with students. 

Who does not know that female students most especially, are daily harassed by lecturers; while some 'do it' for marks, others 'do it' in order not to make their lecturers unhappy with them.

He says:

As a global norm, universities and other tertiary institutions are established by law as autonomous bodies and have their own laws regulating their affairs.

This includes misconduct generally among both staff and students, with clearly articulated appropriate redress mechanism.

Any law or bill which seeks to supplant these laws violates the university autonomy.

In this particular instance, the bill violates the Federal Government of Nigeria and ASUU agreement of 2009 and as such should be rejected.

What makes their rejection more interesting is the fact that they say the bill is targeted at educators., also that sexual harassment is social phenomenon and not peculiar to tertiary institutions.

Faulting the bill, he further says:

The bill is discriminatory, selective, spiteful, and impulsive and lacks logic and any intellectual base by attacking the character and persons of those in tertiary institutions rather than addressing the issue holistically.

Furthermore, the bill is dangerous and inimical to the institutions as it contains several loose and ambiguous words and terms which could also be used to harass, intimidate, victimise and persecute, especially lecturers, through false accusation.

However, the National Universities Commission (NUC) supported the introduction of the bill in view of its relevance and called for its quick passage.

Executive Secretary of the commission says:

University miscellaneous provision act gives them power to formulate policies and by-laws to guide them and most institutions have structures to handle these incidences.

However, there is nothing wrong if there is a legislation to add to what is on ground. We are only saying that universities are doing something about sexual harassment, which may not be enough.

Okojie called on the senate to extend the scope of the bill to cover primary and secondary schools.

The ASUU's demand smells like something from the shrine...