Anti-sexual Harassment Advocacy Cluster, a consortium of different Civil Society Organisations, working to address the prevalence of sexual harassment in tertiary institutions in Nigeria, has called on President Bola Tinubu to sign the sexual harassment prohibition bill for tertiary institutions into law.
The organisations lamented that despite a series of interventions to stop the menace, there had been an increase in cases of sexual harassment in tertiary institutions. The stakeholders made the call at a review meeting focused on the work of the Independent Sexual Harassment Committee at tertiary educational institutions organised by the Centre for Awareness on Justice and Accountability (CAJA) in Abuja, yesterday.
Members of the cluster include: the Centre for Awareness on Justice and Accountability (CAJA) Kano State, Youth Alive Foundation (YAF) Abuja, Gender Mobile Initiative (Abuja), Village Debbo Care Initiative (VDCare) Kaduna State, Sefjamil Media and Development (SMD), Kano State, Joint Association of Persons with Disability (JONAPWD), Gombe State Chapter, Women`s Rights and Health Project (WRAHP) Lagos State and Connected Development—Akwa Ibom State (CODE).
The National Assembly passed the Sexual Harassment in Tertiary Educational Institutions (Prohibition) Bill, 2023.
The bill seeks to promote and protect ethical standards in tertiary institutions. It also seeks to protect students, and academic and non-academic staff against sexual harassment.
Executive Director of Youth Alive Foundation (YAF), Dr Udy Oko, stated that the efforts by the CSOs in actualizing anti-sexual harassment laws were pivotal to ensuring that legislation aimed at combating this pervasive issue is effectively implemented and enforced.
CAJA Executive Director, Kabiru Dakata, stated that the cluster meeting was aimed at advocating the presidential assent to sexual harassment in tertiary educational institutions (Prohibition) Bill, 2023.
