70% Of Female Students Face Sexual Harassment- Group

A Civil Society Organisation (CSO), Gender Mobile Initiative (GMI), has on Tuesday disclosed that 70 per cent of the female population in the country’s school system have experienced sexual harassment.

This was made known by the Executive Director of GMI, Ms Omowumi Ogunrotimi, in Abuja at a summit on “Anti-Sexual Harassment in Educational Institutions,” co-convened by the group and the Independent Corrupt Practice and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

Ogunrotimi said the collaboration with the ICPC was based on its zero-tolerance to sexual harassment and to ensure government’s participation in achieving the desired systems change through policy engagement.

“Perhaps the recent statistics quoted by the World Bank Group on women, law and business on the prevalence of campus sexual harassment needs to be re-echoed for us to understand the urgency required in addressing sexual harassment,” she said.

Ogunrotimi said that the past few years witnessed global reckoning for perpetrators of sexual harassment, especially by abusers who wield significant power over the abused.

She noted that more stakeholders were needed in the frontline to fight the scourge and stem the tide of sexual harassment in the country.

“That 70 per cent of female students experience sexual harassment is an affront to our shared humanity and values as individuals and as a nation.

“While Nigerian tertiary institutions have become the centre ports for power-driven gender-based violence and harassment, the challenge has not received the required corresponding level of attention.

“This spate of violence has been mainly attributed to lack of a comprehensive anti-sexual harassment policy, lack of confidentiality-driven reporting channels and poor institutional response,” Ogunrotimi said.