Prosecute Perpetrators: Keep Our Universities Safe for All -By Chinenye Dennis

Majority of women spend an unwholesome amount of time thinking about ways to avert sexual predators. Most perpetrators are acquainted with their victims and the age range of maximum vulnerability to sexual violence is 18-24 years. This makes college women the most likely to be victimised.

Eight out of every ten female student in tertiary institutions have experienced one form of sexual harassment or the other from a lecturer and in most cases none of them speak up out of fear of what will happen to them if they do, or being victimized by the lecturer’s colleagues. In situations where the victim speaks up, almost nothing is done to the perpetrator because those who are meant to discipline the lecturers are co-perpetrators; they all belong to the same “clique”. The victim gets the witch-hunt meant for the predator thereby enabling these abusers.

The society makes it extremely difficult for sexual predators everywhere to be prosecuted by gaslighting, victim blaming and victim shaming and it is quite disheartening that these preposterous things also happen in citadels meant for knowledge. Besides academics, sexual harassment shouldn’t be the string that binds women in campuses together.

In making the world a safer place and also morphing a healthier learning environment, it is pertinent to encourage the persecution of sexual predators in our campuses. Enabling them by victim blaming should be vehemently discouraged and stricter sanctions for offenders should be mapped out.

Following the recent termination of the employments of some sexual predators and their prosecution and conviction, many victims who are scared to speak up can now speak up and many predators who feel they’re are untouchable will know they are not.