OUR
nation’s poor enforcement of the law is manifesting itself in many
ways, especially in the shocking rate of sexual harassment of women.
Although many would want to deny it, sexual harassment, which could be
unwelcome flirtation, and unsolicited requests for sexual 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, sexual 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 sexual 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. Sexual
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. “Sexual harassment and other forms of sexual
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 sexual violence in public spaces, from sexual harassment to sexual
assault, including rape and femicide,” it says.
States like Lagos, which have set out to
reduce rape and paedophilia, 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 rape cases. We must jointly be committed
to putting a stop to all forms of sexual harassment, assault and abuse,
particularly against our girl-child.”
Sexual 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 sexual 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 raped 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 “sexual 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.
Sexual 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 sexual slavery. And for the children of rape — 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 sexually 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 sexual
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 sexually in New York, governments around the
world ought to do more.
The National Assembly and state Houses of
Assembly should tighten the laws on sexual 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 sexually
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment