Senate exempts clerics and primary school teachers from sexual harassment bill

The senate has exempted Men of God and primary school teachers from its proposed sexual harassment bill.

The senate also excludes teachers in secondary schools from the bill.

The lawmakers on Wednesday, November 6, 2019, proposed a 14-year jail term, for any lecturer that commits sexual offences in tertiary institutions in the country.

The sexual harassment legislation 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” has 27 clauses.

The bill, sponsored by the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege and Senate Leader, Abdullahi Yahaya, respectively scaled through the second reading on Wednesday, November 6, 2019.

The Deputy President of the Senate, Sen. Ovie Omo-Agege is one of the two sponsors of the sexual harassment bill. (NAN) Pulse Nigeria

Explaining the reason for not proposing punishments for perpetrators of sexual offences in primary schools and worship centres, Omo-Agege said there are adequate laws to deal with them already.

He said, “Some advocates have suggested the extension of this Bill to cover primary and secondary schools.

“My passion says ‘yes’ but I know that strict penal liability already attaches to sexual harassment of minors in primary and secondary schools in extant laws.

“I must subject my passion to the law. It is equally not necessary to extend this Bill to cover similar fiduciary relationships.

“It (the bill) does not cover sexual harassment between priest-congregant, employer-employee, father-daughter, and warder-prisoner.

“This is because the Criminal and Penal Codes already adequately deals with these categories with sufficient clarity.”

The proposed legislation 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 recognises other forms of sexual harassment to include; 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; or 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.