The Senate has passed the report by the Conference Committee on a Bill for an Act to make comprehensive provisions for the prohibition and punishment of sexual harassment of students in educational institutions.
The bill titled: ‘A Bill for an Act to prevent, prohibit and redress Sexual Harassment of Students in Tertiary Educational Institutions and for matters concerned therewith, 2019,’ was sponsored by the Deputy President of the Senate, Ovie Omo-Agege, and 106 other senators.
Senator Michael Opeyemi Bamidele (APC, Ekiti Central), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, while presenting the report during Tuesday’s Plenary, noted that the bill was earlier passed in the Senate and House of Representatives in 2020 but with a difference in the long title which eventually prompted a Joint Conference Committee meeting between both chambers to resolve these areas of differences.
READ ALSO: 9th NASS: OrderPaper inducts five lawmakers into MVP Hall of Fame
He also stated the objectives of the Bill include: “prohibiting the offence of sexual harassment of students in tertiary institutions and criminalising the act of neglect or failure of administrative heads of tertiary institutions to address complaints of sexual harassment within a specified period. Others are “creating a strict liability offence by removing mutual consent as a defence in the prosecution of sexual harassment cases in tertiary educational institutions, and maintaining and sustaining the fiduciary relationship that exists between educators and students with the aim of making tertiary institution a conducive center of learning and moral rectitude.”
The Conference Committee report was thereafter adopted by the Red Chamber after a vote was placed.
