Lecturers who engage in sexual relationship or solicit for sexual favours from students might be getting a five year jail term if a recent bill is passed into law.
The bill, prescribing the five year jail time for randy lecturers have reportedly passed for first reading in the Senate on Wednesday, May 4.
The bill, sponsored by (Labour-Delta Central) and co-sponsored by 46 other senators, seeks to completely prohibit any form of sexual relationship between lecturers and their students.
According to Omo-Agege, a law should be put in place in the nation’s institutions of higher learning to rid them of lecturers who saw female students as “prize’’. when the bill is passed and signed into law, any lecturer found guilty will be liable to a jail term of up to five years but not less than two years with no option of fine.
“When passed into law, it makes it a criminal offence for any educator in a university, polytechnic or any other tertiary educational institution to violate or exploit the student-lecturer fiduciary relationship for sexual pleasures.
“The bill imposes stiff penalties on offenders in its overall objective of providing tighter statutory protection for students against sexual hostility and all forms of sexual harassment in tertiary schools and also provides a compulsory five-year jail term for lecturers who sexually harass students.“When passed into law, 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.
“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.
“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.
The bill reads: “an educator shall be guilty of committing an offence of sexual harassment against a student if he/she has sexual intercourse with a student. He or she shall be guilty if he has sexual intercourse with a student or demands for sex from a student or a prospective student as a condition to study in an institution and giving of a passing grade.
“He or she shall be guilty if he solicits sex from or makes sexual advances at a student when the sexual solicitation or sexual advances result in an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment for the student or induces another person to commit any act of sexual harassment under this Act, or cooperates in the commission of sexual harassment by another person.
“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 and he displays, gives or send by hand or courier or electronic or any other means naked or sexually explicit picture or videos or sex related objects to a student.
“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.’’
The bill, which seeks to completely ban lecturer-student relationships, will not consider leniency even if the student consented to the sexual relationship. The only provision is if the student is married to the lecturer.
The bill will also mandate institutions to protect the rights of students who report sexual harassment, while adding that students who falsely accuse a lecturer will face immediate dismissal.
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