When
Nigeria's education minister faced an audience of 1,000 schoolchildren,
she expected to hear complaints of crowded classrooms and lack of
equipment. Instead, girl after girl spoke up about being pressured for
sex by teachers in exchange for better grades. One girl was just 11
years old.
"I was shocked," said the minister, Obiageli
Ezekwesili, who has several children herself. "I asked � was it that
prevalent? And they all chorused 'yes.' "
For years, sexual
harassment has been rampant in Nigeria's universities, but until
recently very little was done about it. From interviews with officials
and 12 female college students, a pattern emerges of women being held
back and denied passing grades for rebuffing teachers' advances, and of
being advised by other teachers to give in quietly.
The problem
has spread into schools, says Ezekwesili, and there are signs the
government is finally intervening. Now that harassment even features in a
song by a popular Nigerian musician, Eedris Abdulkareem, it is almost
impossible to ignore.
"Mr. Lecturer, come get it on with me,"
croons a young girl in the song. "I'm gonna rub your back and your
potbelly, make you pass my paper." With a deep chuckle, Abdulkareem
replies, "Come into my office."
Most victims are college
students such as Chioma, a quiet 22-year-old with a B average, who
repeatedly failed political science after refusing her teacher's
explicit demands for sex. She said he was a pastor old enough to be her
grandfather.
"Now it has been two years and everyone else has
graduated," she said. She is desperate to finish her studies and begin
working to help support her family, yet "my life is stopped," she said.
Chioma
and others who spoke to The Associated Press asked that their surnames
be withheld. All said they and several close friends had been harassed.
Stigma prevents many more from speaking out, says Oluyemisi Obilade, a
professor who teaches adult education at prestigious Obafemi Awolowo
University at Ile-Ife.
Like many Nigerian universities, the
seemingly peaceful campus with its flame trees and soaring art-deco
architecture has witnessed horrifying sexual assaults. After a student
was gang-raped nine years ago, Obilade formed WARSHE � Women Against
Rape, Sexual Harassment and Exploitation.
Obilade estimates she
has helped hundreds of female students � and the odd male � who have
been attacked by students or harassed by lecturers. Students have been
raped in libraries, reading rooms and their own dorms, she says. "Some
lecturers see young girls as fringe benefits," she says. "We've had
cases where the girls have complained and the heads of their department
have called them and said, 'Give him what he wants.' "
Mayowa,
20, a student, said six of her friends are having problems and none has
sought help. "It's tough to fight," she said. "Sometimes you just have
to give in."
In a recent survey carried out by a graduate
student and paid for by WARSHE, 80 percent of 300 women questioned at
four universities said sexual harassment was their top concern.
But
with a strong African tradition of respecting one's elders, families or
teachers, harassed students can rarely expect support, even when
repeated complaints are made against one individual.
Harassment
is commonplace in schools and colleges in many African countries, says
Miriam Jato, a senior adviser to UNFPA, the U.N. agency that deals with
gender issues. She says dodging teachers' advances consumes a girl's
school years.
"In some rural areas, parents withdraw girls from
schools when they reach a certain age because they are afraid they will
have to have relations with teachers."
Yet attitudes are slowly
changing. Ile-Ife university recently fired a professor after repeated
complaints. Chioma has found a woman lecturer to plead her case to
school authorities, and another student who had been harassed was
finally allowed to take a crucial test after Obilade, the professor,
intervened.
WARSHE has extended its program to six other
universities and a nearby secondary school, and Ezekwesili, the
education minister, says she wants to set up complaints programs and
join forces with women's organizations.
"We are going to take punitive measures against these teachers and give a voice to students," she promised.
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