President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has said that the passage of the Sexual Harassment Prohibition Bill by the Senate will ensure the safety of students of tertiary institutions in the country.
Lawan stated this in his remarks on Tuesday after the upper chamber passed a bill for an Act to prevent, prohibit and redress sexual harassment of students in tertiary educational institutions.
The bill was sponsored by the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege.
The passage of the bill followed the consideration of the report of the Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters.
Speaking on the bill passed by the upper chamber, Lawan described the passage of the bill as a very important and landmark legislation that the Ninth Senate has passed, emphasising that they have to protect their daughters from predators.
He stressed the need for tertiary institutions to be very safe environment for everyone, noting that the legislation will ensure that wish.
Earlier, Chairman of the Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, in his presentation said the piece of legislation attracted unprecedented support from not only Distinguished Senators as demonstrated by the 106 Senators that co-sponsored the bill, but an overwhelming number of Nigerians who see the bill as a necessary legislative intervention that will bring sanity and good order to the educator-student relationship in tertiary institutions.
According to the lawmaker, the bill is not targeted at a particular community – the educators, and that it does not interfere with the autonomy of the universities but rather, intended to reposition and strengthen the nation’s tertiary educational institutions to maintain the core values of etiquette and excellence.
He added that with the passage of the bill, the piece of legislation would bridge the huge gap and give legal backing to any internal rule by educational institutions to check the incidences of sexual harassment.
Bamidele stated that contrary to ASUU’s claim that there were extant laws that could sufficiently address sexual harassment in tertiary institutions, the committee found that there were no such laws.
He added that, “by enacting this bill into law, the Nigerian Government would be fulfilling part of its obligations undertaken through the ratification of the United States Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa, and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, amongst others.”
Lawmakers during the clause by clause consideration of the bill, however, differed on the retention of clause seven in the bill.
The Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, who proposed an amendment to clause 7, argued that it was unnecessary for the prosecution to prove the intention of the accused person or the condition under which the act of sexual harassment was carried out.
According to him, the commission of sexual harassment was sufficient to try any educator accused of a sexual offence.
Lawmakers such as the Senate Leader, Yahaya Abdullahi and Senator Abdullahi Adamu, however, argued on the contrary that should the bill make it unnecessary for the prosecutor to prove the intention of any accused person in a sexual harassment trial, same would lower the requisite standards obtainable in criminal proceedings.
According to Senator James Manager, going ahead to pass the bill without making it compulsory for prosecutors to prove the intention of the accused person in a sexual harassment case, may expose educators to blackmail.
“Laws are being made for the people, and when you make laws with a technical …
