Is Nigeria Ready to Battle Sex for Grades in Tertiary Institutions?
Every person, especially adolescent girls and young women, deserve a safe environment, to learn, grow and thrive. Schools in Nigeria, including tertiary institutions, instead are often spaces that reinforce and entrench reminders that girls and young women do not have the right to their bodies, their intelligence, their choices, their lives. Negative gender and social norms are replicated instead of dismantled, because these institutions were not built to accommodate women and girls, until women and girls fought for the right to be there.
Kiki Mordi and the BBC Documentary The powerful Sex for Grades Documentary, erved as a wake- up call that, it is always he right time to change the things we can no longer accept. Sexual violence is somehing we can no longer accept as a society, nd that includes sexual harassment, which s often viewed as a lesser evil. The truth is, t is wrong and unacceptable, and should e something we can no longer tolerate, not nly in Universities, but also in Polytechnics, Colleges of Education, Schools of Nursing, tc. When Kiki shared her story of having to drop out because she was being harassed by Professor, it was a devastating confrontaion with the realities of what it meant to e a girl full of dreams that were literally natched away by one man, who society rotected at her expense. Her story is just ne of many, many stories, strangers, friends, relatives whose life trajectories have been changed, because they refused to "visit a Lecturer’s office". Because they refused to consent to violence. Their stories, like the ones in the documentary - they are sobering, heartbreaking and enraging.
The documentary brought the data to life, and the open secret to light. It shined a spotlight on what the ECOWAS Commissioner for Education, Science, and Culture, Mr. Amado, stated at a meeting in May 2019 on corruption - that the "three major kinds of corruption prevalent in the region's education system, are the manipulation of girls, favouritism when it comes to admission into higher institutions, and sex for marks”. Some feminist scholars like, Dr. Charmaine Pereira in her 2004 journal article, ‘Sexual Harassment in Nigerian Universities:
Exploring Practices, Ethics and Agency’, already understood this, that fighting sexual harassment in tertiary institutions must be located within the fight against corruption, and that this issue was a challenge to our democracy, not just entrenched gender and social norms that are reinforced by patriarchy.
In 1981, the Cookey Commission, a Presidential Commission set up to review salaries and conditions of service for Universities, was the first official mention of sexual harassment in Nigerian Universities. This was 38 years ago. The Commission was concerned, due to the number of allegations of harassment by female students who were being failed not because they weren't smart, but because they refused to be sexually exploited. Can you imagine the number of women scholars we have lost to gender-based discrimination and violence, that went unchecked? The Commission recommended that, structures be put in place to address sexual harassment.
Some Statistics And, yet, in 2011, a study carried out by Eme T. Owoaje and Omolara Olusola-Taiwo found that 69.8% of the Respondents had experienced sexual harassment, and most often, the perpetrators were their peers and teachers. 48.2% of the young women experienced physical forms of harassment while 57.8% experienced verbal forms such as sexual comments and requests for sexual favours, in exchange for higher grades
Facing the Challenge: The Way Forward
The question is, are we angry enough for real change? Real change that addresses the roots of this problem, not just the symptoms. There is the temptation to respond quickly, without truly challenging the rot within the system. Kiki Mordi through this documentary, provided a mirror and we, as a nation, not just not tertiary institutions, must be unflinching in looking deeper past the façade of a few bad eggs. To see the system as it is, an enabling environment for violence that protects predators, rapists, and enablers.
In the journal article mentioned above, Dr. Periera asked if those working with and for Universities, are up to challenge. The question must be repeated today, in light of the many journal articles, newspaper articles, and stories. And now Kiki Mordi is also asking Nigerians so powerfully and eloquently with the Sex for Grades documentary, if we are up to the challenge. For me as a Nigerian, this means going beyond passing the Sexual Harassment in Tertiary Institutions Bill, which although a step in the right direction, requires more work to make it survivor-centred and possible to implement. It goes beyond criminalisation, and the sacking of a few predators.
There have been so many panels and committees created, but the problem is pervasive and deeply rooted, more needs to be done beyond setting up a panel. Even though I am looking forward to the panel set up by the University of Lagos, because it is being chaired by Prof Ayo Atsenuwa, who is one of our brightest legal minds and an amazing woman. Addressing this issue beyond lip service, requires enforcing and promoting an enabling environment that guarantees the safety, security, and health of students, in particular, women and girls, in every University, Polytechnic, College of Education, etc. And, not ignoring the fact that female Lecturers in these institutions, are also harassed by their male peers. And that, non-teaching staff also harass students.
Beyond the bill and the panels, the National Universities Commission needs to be mandated through the Gender Unit, to collect age and gender-disaggregated data on sexual harassment and other forms of gender-based violence, and also on the dropping out of students, especially female students. And that the data needs to be used during accreditation, for quality assurance processes. Part of the minimum standards for accreditation and reaccreditation should be that institutions of higher learning must put in place, policies, protocols, contracts, and coordinated response mechanisms, to address sexual harassment and other rights violations. They must also be able to demonstrate the implementation of the policies, and the institutionalisation of the response mechanisms. Tertiary institutions should not be accredited or re-accredited, if they cannot meet this minimum standard. There should be consequences, we need to demand more of our ivory towers. They must not only rise to the challenge of providing education fit for the 21st century, they must also find the courage to create and reimagine institutions free of all forms of violence, especially violence against women and girls. Are our institutions up to challenge? Are we Nigerians up to the challenge?
Olabukunola Williams, Executive Director, Education as a Vaccine
“KIKI MORDI THROUGH THIS DOCUMENTARY, PROVIDED A MIRROR, AND WE, AS A NATION, NOT JUST NOT TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS...... TO SEE THE SYSTEM AS IT IS, AN ENABLING ENVIRONMENT FOR VIOLENCE THAT PROTECTS PREDATORS, RAPISTS, AND ENABLERS”