A coalition of over 500 women rights organization under the aegis of Womanifesto have called on the Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohaneye, to issue a retraction and tender public apology for working against the interest of women in Nigeria.
The women rights movement was reacting to the statement credited to the Minister concerning the sexual harassment scandal at the University of Calabar (UNICAL).
The organization said It was gravely concerned about her utterances on the UNICAL sexual harassment case and their implications for the interest and protection of vulnerable women and children in Nigeria.
The Minister, in the video, also purportedly insinuated that the students were being used and manipulated by some people to get Ndifon out of office, so they themselves could take his place.
She was reportedly heard in trending video threatening the students of UNICAL with dire consequences including imprisonment if they continued to pursue the case of sexual harassment against the suspended Dean of the Faculty of Law, Prof. Cyril Ndifon.
According to the video, the Minister said since the female students had admitted that they were not raped, it meant they were not sexually harassed.
But Womanifesto in a letter to the Minister on Saturday in Abuja, recalled a recent meeting with her where she was advised to desist from meddling in the case of sexual harassment against Ndifon and interfacing with the female student victims in the case, with the possible motive/outcome of silencing them.
The letter signed by the Co-Convener of Womenifesto and Executive Director of Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC), Dr. Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, was copied to President Bola Tinubu, chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and Other-Related Offences Commission (ICPC) Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye; Executive Secretary of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Tony Ojukwu (SAN); Attorney-General Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) and First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu.
sexual abuse that sometimes spans their entire academic career, it is important that school authorities and law enforcement agencies encourage female alumni who were abused while they were in school to also come forward”, the gender activists emphasized.
They called on Tinubu to immediately do the needful by assenting to the Sexual Harassment Prohibition Law, saying: “Delay in the face of frequent allegations of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct and impunity on the part of lecturers in our tertiary institutions is harmful to the interest of women.”
“Nigeria is a signatory to quite a number of International Treaties (and has, on her own, passed several laws) which aim to protect the rights of women and girls; these include the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the ILO Declaration on Sexual Harassment and the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act, among others. These are all compelling reasons for the President to expeditiously assent to the Sexual Harassment Prohibition Law”, the petition said.
