A child that is well brought up from home is better equipped to prevent and successfully deflect any harassment
What times we are living in! If you are not fighting to keep your life these days, you are battling to keep the life of a loved one from armed robbers, kidnappers, and the government. This has had many people devising for themselves different means of self-protection. The really normal ones among us bring lions into their homes. When anyone goes for a lion as a guard, you can tell he has lost faith in the law. Most of us abnormal people take one or two dogs into our homes in exchange for a few services such as expecting them to bark or bite unwanted guests.
A really ferocious dog was once unleashed on an armed robber. No, it didn’t belong to me; the dog that is, not the robber. The unfortunate robber had hoped to evade police capture by leaping over walls that took him from one compound to another in a neighbourhood, only to find himself under the fangs of a Rottweiler in one. You could say the robber leaped from frying pan to fire. From the story told by the owner of the dog himself, that dog knew a robber when he saw one. We are told that the police had to delicately extricate the severed arm and other body parts belonging to the daring robber from the still active jaws of that dog.
I have not been so lucky with my dogs. I have always had a great deal of difficulty unleashing them on anything but their food. Indeed, one dog was so ferocious toward his food he knew the hour of its arrival and always came to sit near or around the kitchen at the due hour. Another one unleashed its courtesy onto strangers by allowing them to climb over my wall and get into my compound whenever I have not been at home. So clearly, there are terrorist dogs, and there are terror dogs.
One terror that the state appears to be preparing to unleash on the citizens, I hear, is the bill punishing the sexual harassment of students by their teachers in tertiary institutions. In brief, it appears that the bill wants to make an offence out of any attempt by any teacher to take any sexual advantage of their charges in those institutions. Teachers are to teach, no more, no less.
Let me say from the outright that it is most reprehensible indeed for any male or female teacher to take any sexual advantage of their charges. Actually, it is rather low of anyone to take advantage of anyone completely in his or her power. I read somewhere that the real mark of a powerful person is one who has the power to crush someone but desists from doing it. I believe that to dangle one’s power in front of a weaker vessel or to actually use the power signifies an inner core that is very, very weak and insecure. This goes for wife beating, child beating, raping, paedophilic activities, sexual harassment of minors, rich men dangling money in front of poor girls, rich people’s private torture chambers, etc. They are instances of self-indulgence, and they just reinforce the unnatural belief that might is right.
Nevertheless, for our assembly to bring out a bill simply to deal with a number of errant teachers in tertiary institutions sounds to me like overkill and a waste of state resources. The state already has resources to deal with it. The courts are always open for any aggrieved person to seek redress on any matter, not just sexual harassment. In any case, the courts will still be the final arbiter in that bill; so, why go through the long route of the bill to get to the courts?
More importantly, I’m not too sure who exactly can claim that he or she has been sexually harassed. Can a handshake, a small pat, a playful punch, a small tap to attract someone’s attention, etc., all count as harassment? If so, my dog does most of these to me all the time. I should sue the heck out of the burgher. A teacher-student relationship cannot but be somewhat friendlier than that of two strangers if any meaningful impact is to be made in that student’s mentoring. For all I know, most teachers are responsible and knowing ones who know where the line is.
I grant that there are a few teachers who have many blind spots in their eyes so cannot see any line even if it is staring them in the eyes. In truth, they seem to have an attitude that says, ‘So many fringe benefits to get through, and so little time to do it!’ And they are eating up the poor little tykes like a tractor going through the fields. The tertiary institutions already have resources to deal with such; they are called disciplinary committees. However, we ought not, because of these few ones, bring out an entire bill.
Nevertheless, it has been established that the crop of students we have now is a far cry from the days of university studentship. In the by-gone eras, studentship was about professionalism because only the best got into these higher institutions anyway. They knew what they went into the schools for and seriously pursued it. Not so anymore; students are now busier pursuing their social images and then ‘see’ how to wriggle out of their failures. So, can the bill guarantee that there will not be any misapplication when a student fails to do his or her work and turns around to claim that he or she is being harassed to cover up? Can the bill protect all fairly and squarely?
Listen if we must go ahead with his bill; can a teacher also claim sexual harassment by a student? The reason is that some of the time it’s the student who is doing the harassing through really bad dressing, flirty and coy behaviour or preferring to meet selected teachers alone and at odd hours. Believe me, the intervention of many tertiary institutions in students’ dressing has only helped so much. It is still below knee level as many students are drawn more by fashion’s trends than school rules.
Once, I told a student that her dressing was causing me to feel cold. The top was very transparent with her undies in full display, it was harmattan and she was knocking on a male lecturer’s door when I passed. If I were that teacher, I would claim harassment for sure. Another one wore a very skimpy skirt under a very transparent gown. When I stopped her to complain about it, she said she had tight leggings under the skirt. Really! If a teacher is expected to hold himself or herself, I think students should be schooled from home to lend a helping hand in the matter by dressing decently.
However, if the country insists on going ahead with this sexual harassment bill, then I must ask that there should be complimentary bills. Just as the assembly has heard stories coming out of the ivory towers for them to come up with this bill, so also we have heard stories coming out of the assembly about how money is flung at young girls to make them succumb to the advances of men old enough to be their granddaddies. A father was said to have thrown out his daughter and her prize Benz on account of this. So, let us have a bill criminalising sugar-daddism. While we are at it, let’s also have a bill outlawing insufficient housekeeping allowance; it’s criminal.
Before we unleash that sexual harassment bill, let us have a rethink. A child that is well brought up from home is better equipped to prevent and successfully deflect any harassment. I think that is where we should direct our energy.
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