Ekiti First Lady, others task administrators on sexual harassment on campus

With the spate of sexual harassment in tertiary institutions, First Lady of Ekiti State, Erelu Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi has called on heads of institutions to checkmate the ill and promote respect for young women.

The call was made at the launch of Campus Pal Mobile Platform in Abuja designed to put in place a template for anti-sexual harassment.

According to the first lady and gender activist, with the platform coming on stream, the dreadful culture of silence on sex for grades in colleges will be finally broken.

Fayemi explained that sexual harassment is one of the insidious practices that continue to go unchecked, saying, the mobile application will expose the key players, and perpetuators of the acts. She argued that the pattern is that many male lecturers have a sense of entitlement to the bodies of their female students, using it to threaten, cajole, obstruct justice, collude, persuade and reward.

“We are angry at the lack of respect for the young women and the absence of any sense of decorum by the male predators. The dearth of support systems and culture of impunity is rife in most tertiary institutions,” she added

Executive Director of Gender Mobile Initiative, Barr. Omowumi Ogunrotimi said they are focusing on the environment of learning to address sexual abuses from a policy standpoint and through technology adoption.

Contributing, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami noted that this marks a paradigm shift in the way to respond to Gender-Based Violence.

He said he supports any initiative aimed at preventing sexual harassment within the learning and teaching spaces as complementary approaches to this application.

Also, the Director-General of National Orientation Agency, Dr. Garba Abari disclosed they started a similar campaign in 2012 to provide an interactive platform for the university community. “We commend the laudable initiative of Gender Mobile on the launch of this technology platform been introduced to compliment government’s efforts in stemming sexual harassment in our ivory towers.”