We are appalled at the prevalence of sexual harassment in our tertiary institutions. We agree with the senate that there is need for a tougher legislation to stem the ugly trend.
Senate president Photo credit: ThisDay
But we doubt, whether it is appropriate to make a law that criminalises such despicable offences in our tertiary institutions, while leaving off other places where such tendency abounds.
Such a law will be discriminatory against those in our tertiary institutions, while allowing such tendencies elsewhere.
So, while applauding the senate for tackling the burgeoning menace, we urge it to make the proposed law applicable to all and sundry.
The law, we submit, should apply to all persons who use their position of authority to extract sexual favour from the opposite sex.
While it is condemnable for a lecturer to use his or her position to sexually harass students; it should not be condoned, if a senator uses his or her position to extract sexual favour from an intern working in the National Assembly, for instance.
The same law should also be applicable, if an editor uses his position to sexually harass a cub reporter. To be lawful, effective and just, a law must apply universally to all persons who may commit such an offence.
To enact a law otherwise, is discriminatory and unlawful, and so, the senate may just have pandered to the public angst against the immoral behaviour of some lecturers in our higher institutions.
If, as the senators argued, there are other sexual offences laws applicable to other persons outside the tertiary institutions, such laws will also apply to lecturers, after all they have no constitutional immunity.
So, the bill on sexual harassment in our tertiary institutions passed by the senate may be shot down by the courts, as being discriminatory and targeted at a particular community, which, in our view, is unconstitutional.
Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, chairman of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, in his presentation, said of the bill: “this legislation is meant to address incidences of sexual harassment in tertiary institutions only, as there are other laws that address sexual offences in respect of persons under the age of 18 years such as the Child Rights Act 2003.”
We doubt if the senators adverted their minds to the provision of section 42(1)(a) of the 1999 constitution (as amended), which provides:
“A citizen of Nigeria of a particular community, ethnic group, place of origin, sex, religious or political opinion shall not, by reason only that he is such a person be subjected either expressly by, or in the practical application of any law in force in Nigeria or any executive or administrative action of the government, to disabilities or restrictions to which citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religious or political opinions are not made subject.”
Of note, our position is not to demean the efforts of the senators to protect the Nigerian girl child from the perilous times that sexual offences have constituted in their lives.
In amending the bill, we also draw the attention of the senate to what we may call statutory rape, whereat hiding under some social and religious inclinations, elderly men are allowed to marry underage girls.
Perhaps, it will be fair to make the proposed law applicable to the female gender who demand for sex from underage males, too.
Source: Nation
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