“He is one of the few doctors in that unit who’s actually receptive to students (apparently he had lied to impress me). He went from being nice to me to asking me over to his place in the middle of the night.”
Bisi*, a fourth year medical student at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan (COMUI).
The University of Ibadan 2012 Sexual Harassment policy describes sexual harassment as “unwanted sexually motivated conduct, comments, touching and expressions capable of prejudicing or undermining a person’s freedom, rights and privileges. Such acts could include but are not limited to outright demands, ogling, indecent comments and unnecessary bodily contact which could lead to psychological or physical unsolicited relationships. OR unwanted suggestive looks, phone calls or use of other multimedia format and comments intended to lure a person into a sexual relationship.” This description is strongly needed to establish the context of this article. It is because of this description that we can conclude that Bisi’s experience was a case of sexual harassment.
Medical education at the COMUI is structured such that a medical student rotates multiple faculties and departments during the course of his learning. These multiple rotations also mean that the process of facilitating his education is not left entirely in the hands of one doctor but every medical personnel eventually contributes to it. The busy consultants who oversee the learning, the likewise busy residents whom students are more in contact with and hold multiple tutorials for the students and whom they are on call with, the house officers who may not contribute much to their learning but their contribution is not insignificant. With the University of Ibadan saying that a student has to satisfy the institution in learning and character, one may as well conclude that the non teaching staff—including the porters at the university hostels—are some sort of facilitators too. When a female medical student says that one of her facilitators made an untoward advance towards her, if you have spent long enough on this side of the divide, some names would come to your head. These whispers have been repeated far too often for there not to be some iota of truth in them.
Untoward advances for medical students come in different forms, Joko*, a fifth year female medical student reports hers as “one of the male porters at Alexander Brown Hall would reach out for a handshake with me and then start drawing circles in the palm of my hand. Once, he asked me to come with him for a stroll around 9pm.” Or in the form of unwanted attention. “It was the second to the last day of the posting. I had joined the SR for clinic with a male member of my class. There was also a female registrar in the room with us and SRs seeing patients in other consulting rooms. He had been oddly kind to me during the posting but I just viewed it as kindness. He was teaching the registrar some things and kept asking me to wait to learn. He didn’t ask the male classmate to wait. Finally, the registrar left and one or two of the remaining SRs also left. He asked me to sit in front of him and started asking what I had learnt during the posting. I responded and later he asked if he could have my number which I gave him,” Kike* says. But, it didn’t stop there. “He texted later in the evening (around 10 or 11pm, to be precise).
SR: “Good evening, fine girl”
Me: “good evening sir”
SR: “you know who this is?”
SR: “how are you?”
I haven’t responded to the message since then,” she says. Or in the form of unwanted questions or looks. Titi* says “… he’d always touch me, stare at me and reply to my status, I also want to say he never forced me to do anything or touched me sexually. He collected my phone number authoritatively. Then he messaged me asking if I had a boyfriend and reacted to my status offering to take me out, I declined and he didn’t fight it.” Whatever form it takes, the effect it has on these students is similar — it makes them feel uncomfortable. One may try to explain the exchange or experiences of these students away as simply reading too much meaning into it but what plausible explanation is there for facilitators to suggest taking walks with students, texting them for non-educational purposes at 10PM or offering to take them out?
To bystanders or other medical students witnessing this, they may describe it as favour from the facilitators. Some would even go as far as alluding the success of female medical students to these favours that they seem to be getting from the facilitators. But Kike’s experience suggests otherwise “I got my signatures a lot easier during the posting. I also got to assist more procedures. But after I had left his message on read, I felt a certain level of unease whenever I had to work or learn with him. This was obvious the next day when he was the senior registrar on call and I felt very uncomfortable staying on call with him.” Similar grievances were shared by other responders, “I am now very uncomfortable with learning if he is around. I usually hope he isn’t,” Bisi says, when asked how the exchange had affected her learning.
None of the students who shared their experiences with us reported their ordeal or tried to seek some regression for it. This could be because it had not escalated into an outright sexual harassment and not much could be reported. Or as Kike says when asked, “I just didn’t think there was any provision for it. It also wasn’t a fully blown sexual/romantic advance so if I had reported, I didn’t think anyone would take me seriously”. Titi’s response was also quite similar “Because what exactly will I say? The Nigerian system will never keep it anonymous; I’d probably be exposed and be put into a lot of trouble since he didn’t force me but it’s still wrong.” Bisi’s response, although similar, carried some reflection into the past. “It is my word against his and with the way UCH has handled previous cases, always protecting their doctors, I already know I will be the one who gets in trouble coz “why was i being friendly in the first place?” I think it is a society issue too.”
The 2012 University of Ibadan Sexual Harassment policy has outlined ways to go about reporting a sexual harassment case. First, the complaint, formal or informal, must be made at the Gender and Mainstreaming Office (GMO) by the victim or a witness. Then, an investigation would be made into the facts and true nature of the matter. The university reserves the right to investigate and conclude when a case is reported to them. The investigation may include inviting for questioning, comments, clarifications and opinions, any person considered relevant to the purpose of facilitating the investigation. On paper, that is what it looks like, but in reality, it is a much more complicated process. This was seen in 2019 when Dr Adeosun, a then dental student at the COMUI, was raped by one of the facilitators of her education, Dr Olugbenga, a senior registrar. After the incident, she went to the University College Hospital (UCH) for some tests and the doctor on duty refused to attend to her. Dr Iyayi, the financial secretary of the Association of Resident Doctors visited her soon after and asked her what she wanted as confirmation to keep her mouth shut. A panel was set up only after one month. The panel asked questions that did not offer her any hope for justice. The panel was adjourned on the 27th January 2020 and has not met since then. Dr Iyayi shared the panel’s decision which was not public. They had decided to punish Dr Olugbenga for having sexual intercourse with a medical student and not for rape. This showed how a report of sexual harassment with evidence was treated within COMUI. She was first refused care, offered some money to keep her mouth shut and no justice at all. According to online reports, the decision of the investigating panel was never announced officially.
Sexual harassment starts from untoward advances and sexual remarks from the perpetrator to the victim. The University of Ibadan 2012 Sexual Harassment policy included creation of awareness on sexual harassment as one of her responsibilities but not much has been seen on that end. It is also the university’s responsibility to ensure that students are aware of the steps and measures in place to report sexual harassment either from a colleague, subordinate or superior.
*Asterisks indicate that names have been changed to protect identities.
