By Adeyemo Eyitayo
Sexual assault and harassment is a common social disorder among students in tertiary institutions. Just about every female student lives with the fear of either getting harassed or assaulted sexually by lecturers or their fellow male students. It has denied them self-worth and left them with emotional scars that in no way heals.
Many students who go through situations like this cannot speak out for a number of reasons: lack of parental support, threats from lecturers, guilt, fear, failure of the institution’s report system, and shaming from society.
#Sex for Grades has trended severally and some perpetrators pay for their crime. But it seems never seems to end there are still many abusers hiding in the shadows.
It brings us to the story of Osas, a copywriter, an entrepreneur, a sexual assault advocate, and a just-graduated student, who shared her campus life nightmare of sexual harassment on social media.
“Four years in Unilag and there was no day I didn’t want to drop out. The moment this lecturer moved on me, I lost total interest in school and hated school with my entire being. Yes, I got carry overs in his courses for two years, even though his courses were my strength”, she wrote.
It did not stop even until her final year when she picked a project topic centered around sexual harassment. Osas revealed that her topic was scorned by some of her lecturers because it came after the Sex for Grades documentary. “When I got to chapter four, my supervisor swore that she didn’t remember approving my topic, I left her office and broke down,” Osas wrote.
I was the only one with that topic in the entire department and my work was impeccable as acknowledged by the sub supervisor I was referred to, but they didn’t even let me introduce myself before they asked why I picked the topic. My supervisor had to beg them to let me go.
At that point, I just wanted to graduate, I didn’t even care anymore. It finally happened today and I’m glad I saw this through for the sake of my late mom… Osas concluded.
“Shola a year 3 student revealed her experience with a male student, “At first, I thought it was a mistake because we were tight. This guy touched my upper private part inside a campus shuttle, said he was sorry that he thought I liked it after I gave him a furious look.. I almost died.”
Damilola, a 200 level student: “A lecturer invited me into his office all in the name of academic work. After a while, he started touching me in the sensitive parts of my body. I managed to pull myself away from him and ran out of his office…”
Anonymous: “A friend of mine was sexually and physically abused on campus in broad daylight. We brought the case to the school’s counseling unit but was it wasleft unattended. After making fake promises to punish the student … my friend hasn’t recovered fom that unfortunate incident.”
The truth is not all students are as bold as Osas here. Moreso, there is a general belief that sexual abuse or assault cases would not favor the student victim even if due reporting is observed. Hence, the failure to speak up when such an incident occurs. It has led to a lack of trust in the school report system and denied access to justice for victims.
Students will need to take back control and never hesitate to speak up when assaulted or this cycle of abuse will just keep repeating itself in schools and work places for generations to come.
Hmmmm the writter has said her own opinion but the truth must be told. I heard about cases like this before when lecturer will be having sexual assault with students and is very hard for students to come out and say this because their beliefs is that most of our University lectures are involved in this issue.And what is school authority is doing about it.i had one of my friend then just be a friend to a lady of the same department and a lecturer want to date this girl but sees my friend as obstacle to him an when they get to final year the lecturer has to fail my friend but thank to the dean of faculty whom God used to settle the matter.And the most important thing is that parents should be able to visit their children regularly because I remember my school days there was a lady studentin my department who her father is a clerg
but to her parent she was saint and to us in school she was you know,so civilisations has spoil our culture and can we say our mode of dressing should be census if the authority can implement this our various universities.thanks