A bill for a law which prescribes five-year jail term for lecturers who engage in sexual relationship with students was passed for first reading in the Senate yesterday.
Nigerian Bulletin brings you the 10 major components of the bill:
1. Any lecturer found guilty of sexual harassment will be liable to a jail term of up to five years but not less than two years with no option of fine.
2. He or she shall be guilty if he grabs, hugs, rubs or strokes or touches or pinches the breasts or hair or lips or hips or buttocks or any other sensual part of the body of a student.
3. A lecturer shall be guilty of sexual harrasement if he displays, gives or sends by hand or courier or electronic or any other means naked or sexually explicit pictures or videos or sex related objects to a student.
4. He or she shall be guilty if he whistles or winks at a student or screams or exclaims or jokes or makes sexually complimentary or uncomplimentary remarks about a student’s physique.
5. Vice chancellors of universities, rectors of polytechnics and other chief executives of institutions of higher learning will go to jail for two years if they fail to act within a week on complaints of sexual harassment made by students.
6. The bill expressly allows sexually harassed students, their parents or guardians to seek civil remedies in damages against sexual predator lecturers before or after their successful criminal prosecution by the State.
7. The bill also seeks to protect, from sexual harassment, prospective students seeking admissions into institutions of learning, students of generally low mental capacity and physically challenged students,’’ he stated.
8. The bill also has provisions to sanction students who falsely accuse lecturers of sexual harassment. Such students could face dismissal from the school but no jail term was prescribed.
9. According to the bill, the only exemption is where the student is legally married to the lecturer before admission in the school as a student.
10. It states that the consent of the student shall not serve, in anyway, as a defence as the bill seeks to completely ban lecturer-student relationships.
Nigerian Bulletin brings you the 10 major components of the bill:
1. Any lecturer found guilty of sexual harassment will be liable to a jail term of up to five years but not less than two years with no option of fine.
2. He or she shall be guilty if he grabs, hugs, rubs or strokes or touches or pinches the breasts or hair or lips or hips or buttocks or any other sensual part of the body of a student.
3. A lecturer shall be guilty of sexual harrasement if he displays, gives or sends by hand or courier or electronic or any other means naked or sexually explicit pictures or videos or sex related objects to a student.
4. He or she shall be guilty if he whistles or winks at a student or screams or exclaims or jokes or makes sexually complimentary or uncomplimentary remarks about a student’s physique.
5. Vice chancellors of universities, rectors of polytechnics and other chief executives of institutions of higher learning will go to jail for two years if they fail to act within a week on complaints of sexual harassment made by students.
6. The bill expressly allows sexually harassed students, their parents or guardians to seek civil remedies in damages against sexual predator lecturers before or after their successful criminal prosecution by the State.
7. The bill also seeks to protect, from sexual harassment, prospective students seeking admissions into institutions of learning, students of generally low mental capacity and physically challenged students,’’ he stated.
8. The bill also has provisions to sanction students who falsely accuse lecturers of sexual harassment. Such students could face dismissal from the school but no jail term was prescribed.
9. According to the bill, the only exemption is where the student is legally married to the lecturer before admission in the school as a student.
10. It states that the consent of the student shall not serve, in anyway, as a defence as the bill seeks to completely ban lecturer-student relationships.