President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan has said that the passage of the sexual harassment bill by the Senate will ensure the safety of students of tertiary institutions in the country.
Lawan stated this in his remarks on Tuesday after the upper chamber passed a bill for an Act to prevent, prohibit and redress sexual harassment of students in Tertiary Educational Institutions.
The bill was sponsored by the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege (APC – Delta Central).
The passage of the bill followed the consideration of the report of the Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters.
Speaking on the bill passed by the upper chamber, Lawan said,
“This is a very important and landmark legislation that the Ninth Senate has passed. We have to protect our daughters from predators.”“In the process we could see clearly that we wanted fair means of determining what offence somebody is accused of, so it is a balanced legislation.“We want our tertiary institutions to be a very safe environment for everyone, and this is a legislation that will ensure that wish”, the Senate President added.
Earlier in his presentation, the Chairman of the Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele (APC – Ekiti Central), said the piece of legislation “attracted unprecedented support from not only Distinguished Senators as demonstrated by the 106 Senators that Co-sponsored the bill but an overwhelming number of Nigerians who see the bill as a necessary legislative intervention that will bring sanity and good order to the educator-student relationship in our tertiary institutions.”
According to the lawmaker,
“the bill is not targeted at a particular community – the educators and that it does not interfere with the autonomy of the universities – rather, it is intended to reposition and strengthen our tertiary educational institutions to maintain the core values of etiquette and excellence.”
