Dealing With Upsurge In S-xual Harassment
By EDITORIAL BOARD / punchng.com / First posted 06/22/2014

OUR nation’s poor enforcement of the law is manifesting itself in many ways, especially in the shocking rate of s-xual harassment of women. Although many would want to deny it, s-xual harassment, which could be unwelcome flirtation, and unsolicited requests for s-xual favours that are used to determine the basis for employment or promotion, is growing in the country. It is a social albatross that must be eliminated.

Mostly, s-xual harassment affects the womenfolk, irrespective of their marital status or age. This untoward practice is particularly rife in the public service and schools, though private organisations are not insulated from it. It is a sore point in our tertiary educational institutions. Female students who reject the advances of their lecherous lecturers often pay dearly for it.

It is no less an issue in the civil service, where many women have been unduly made to suffer career stagnation for not giving in to their bosses. Some women have even taken the drastic step of quitting the service after facing severe and persistent demands for s-xual favours in a male-dominated bureaucracy.

Ebele Okeke, Nigeria’s recently-retired first female Head of Service, situates the issue properly. She says, “There is a lot of discrimination, but we don’t vocalise it. S-xual harassment is real. Some women leave (the civil) service out of annoyance or frustration.” It is also said to be widespread in the private sector, especially in smaller, one-man outfits.

The UN Women, an arm of the United Nations, bears out Okeke. “S-xual harassment and other forms of s-xual violence in public spaces are an everyday occurrence for women and girls around the world — in urban and rural areas, in developed and developing countries. Women and girls experience and fear various types of s-xual violence in public spaces, from s-xual harassment to s-xual assault, including r-pe and femicide,” it says.

States like Lagos, which have set out to reduce r-pe and p-edophilia, must go the whole hog and ensure that there is a strong legal backing to deal with the scourge. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, Lagos State’s deputy governor, said, “I’m optimistic that, with a life jail term, with no option of fine for offenders, there will be a great reduction in r-pe cases. We must jointly be committed to putting a stop to all forms of s-xual harassment, assault and abuse, particularly against our girl-children.”

S-xual harassment not only frustrates women, it works against the society. Brilliant and hard working women are denied the opportunity of contributing to the growth of the society when they are unjustly prevented from growing in their careers because they would not accede to the s-xual demands of their male bosses.

In our tertiary institutions, many female students have had their intellectual potential stymied because they are either intimidated or harassed by fellow students, who may be secret cult members, or their lecturers. Even female lecturers are not spared by lascivious heads of department who deny them their merited promotions.

In a troubling case, a National Youth Service Corps member, Helen Okpara, alleged in 2010 that a monarch in Osun State r-ped her, with the case going for trial, only for the accused to be freed by the court late last year.

And after being inundated with daily petitions from students and staff over corrupt practices in Nigerian schools, an Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission investigation in 2013 found that “s-xual harassment seems to rank extremely very high among corrupt practices uncovered” in our tertiary institutions. The problem, which some unjustifiably say is caused by female seduction, has yet to subside as nobody is paying serious attention to it.

S-xual violence against women, which is now a global phenomenon, forced American actress and UN special envoy, Angelina Jolie, and British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, to convene a summit in London, England last week to alert the world to the need to end the plague.

The summit reminded governments that they had no excuse not to clamp down on such primordial practices. Jolie said, “We’re here for the nine-year-old girl in Uganda, kidnapped and forced into s-xual slavery. And for the children of r-pe — we want the whole world to hear their stories and understand that this injustice cannot be tolerated, and that sorrow and compassion are not enough.”

Lately, a group of s-xually perverted men cast a pall over the inauguration of Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi as Egypt’s new president by molesting several women at the Tahrir Square in the country’s capital, Cairo. The attacks were headlined by the molestation of a 19-year-old girl and her mother, which made the new helmsman to order a strict implementation of the newly-amended law on s-xual harassment.

While women rights advocates were elated with the swiftness Dimonique Strauss-Kahn, a former International Monetary Fund managing director, received his comeuppance for allegedly harassing a hotel employee s-xually in New York, governments around the world ought to do more.

The National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly should tighten the laws on s-xual harassment and violence in Nigeria, while the police and other security agencies should prosecute offenders, no matter how highly placed. The government should fashion a national strategy to combat the escalation.

On their part, women could fight this entrenched social ill by speaking out whenever they are harassed. No woman should keep quiet, whether at the workplace, school or church.

As the South-West Conference of Women Judges in Nigeria advocates, the cultural habits preventing victims from coming out in the open about abuses must be done away with. The organisation said, “It is unfortunate that, because of traditional inhibitions, there is a culture of silence when a girl is s-xually assaulted.” This has to change.

More women groups and NGOs should join forces with the female judges and Jolie to encourage world leaders to give the issue the attention it deserves so as to save women from debauched men.
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