Legal Impediments To Protection From Sexual Harassment In Nigerian Universities
Abstract:Across the globe sexual harassment as a global epidemic is one of the most widespread age-long social problems and crimes against woman albeit with varied pervasiveness and practice within the universities. Research on female students’ experience of violence in UK campuses found that one in four respondents had experienced unwanted sexual behaviour. In USA about 300,000 women are raped and 3.7 million are confronted with unwanted sexual activity annually while at Jimma University in Ethiopia, of 385 women at the University, 78.2% had experienced different forms of harassment. Consequences of sexual harassment in higher education include unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, increased alcohol use impaired career opportunities, reduced job motivation, decreased job satisfaction, decreased self-confidence and self-image, and more. Nine out of ten of the world’s countries have laws against sexual harassment in working life today, but almost six out of ten lack adequate laws against sexual harassment in higher education and schools. Nigeria is certainly not exempted. The paper finds that in spite of the efforts of the Nigerian government to combat this systemic epidemic the problem has not abated. Therefore, using the doctrinal research methodology, the paper examines the legal impediments to protection from sexual harassment in Nigerian universities with a view to proffering some recommendations towards elimination of the endemic problem in Nigerian Universities.
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