University Students Fake Pregnancy To Avoid Sexual Harassment

Thousands of female university students in Nigeria are facing sexual harassment at the hands of predatory lecturers, and other university staff. Students who fail to yield to their sexual demands have been ostracism out of the school by the philandering lecturers.  Lecturers have failed many students repeatedly until they capitulated to their sexual demands. This wicked act is condemnable, malefic, reprehensible, and shameful.

In other to avoid lecturers sexual harassment, Girls in many higher institutions of learning have invent a new strategy of wearing something to fake pregnancy. One heavily pregnant student of one of the universities in Enugu, who was in no way pregnant when she was sighted earlier in the day. Read what she said...

“I am wearing something to fake a pregnancy. I am just coming from a meeting with my lecturer. He has been harassing me, demanding that he must sleep with me before I will pass his course. I have been pleading with him to leave me alone but he will not listen.

“Before the school went on break, I told him I just got married but he said that would not stop him from sleeping with me.

“Fortunately, he has not seen me since we resumed after the long break. So, when he called again to ask me to meet him, I told him I would see him in a public place first. He agreed. So I had to wear this costume under my dress to pretend I was pregnant. “He was disappointed when he saw me. He fell for it and he believed I was actually pregnant. I was surprised when he asked me if he could still sleep with me even with the pregnancy but I told him my doctor advised against it because I was having complications,” the Enugu State University of Technology student, who pleaded that she should not be named, in order to avoid possible victimisation, narrated.

However, she is not out of the woods yet. The lecturer left the “meeting” with a vow to sleep with her after she puts to bed. “He said he would still sleep with me after I gave birth. I am now confused,” she added.

Following the encounter, further findings show that many female undergraduates devise similar desperate measures to evade “predatory” lecturers in the higher institutions of learning in Enugu State.

Rita (not real name), a 300-level student of UNEC, informed our correspondent that as the predatory lecturers plot how to ensnare them, the students on their part are also inventing ways to evade the “traps”.

“Not all the young girls you see with pregnancy on campuses are actually pregnant. Some are faking it just to avoid advances from some lecturers,” Rita said, adding that the “strategy” had worked for her and some of her friends in the past.

Another ESUT female undergraduate, who simply gave her name as Ebere, said she had to throw up in a lecturer’s office, in order to “convince” the man that she was in the early stages of pregnancy. She admitted that the “vomiting” was faked. But she also noted that it was not easy to continue holding on to a fake pregnancy. Ebere said, “He wanted to sleep with me but I told him I was married. He said I was not wearing any wedding ring. I said it was a traditional wedding; yet, he said it did not matter.

“So, the next time I came to his office I threw up, and told him I was pregnant.

“He let me be. But afterwards, when he saw that I was not really pregnant, he started pestering me again. I had to lie again. I told him I had a miscarriage. I think the story demoralised him because he has not been bothering me since then.”

Like some others, an Ex-Officio of the National Association of Nigerian Students, Deborah Ohuoba, said there was no denying the vice on campuses.

Drawing from her personal experience, Ohuoba said, “When I encountered it, the first thing I did was to pray about it. In fact, it got to a point that I started wearing a wedding ring to school, telling them that I was married.

“One of them cooperated with me. But there was this other particular lecturer who did not want to hear whether you were married or not. I told him that in my village, if a married woman slept with another man, she would go mad. It got to that stage, but I had to pay him, even though initially, he never wanted money but insisted on going to bed with me. But I asked him whether he would risk his student going mad just because of five minutes satisfaction? That was what happened.”

An official of ESUT, who pleaded anonymity, told our correspondent that the institution had sacked about three lecturers for sexually harassing female students. The official said it was unfortunate that many of the affected students shied away from reporting the lecturers involved in the practice.