The visibility of sexual harrasmnet in at Nigerian universities is irrelevant to what is going on in grade schools. It only seems related beause of the setting, but the sertting is not enough cause for such an inductive leap as Clark-Flory makes.

I have no doubt that many Nigerian college professors feel they have a free pass to harass their students - lots of US professors feel they have that right too. But what does this have to do with projecting the sexual harrassment problem into grade schools?

In the university setting, we have professors at, or working towards, the pinnacle of their careers - a position that often leads to a sense of entitlement. And we have young women who've reached their full adult sexual maturity. A number of these professors and young women doubtless engage in consensual relations and flirtations. In this environment sexual harrassment is not necessarily to be expected, and of course should never be tolerated...but certainly no one should be *surprised* that some people want sexual attention from those who don't want to reciprocate.

Male teachers hitting on grade school girls is a whole different ball of wax. These men are NOT surrounded by potentially consenting adults, engaging in intellectual pursuits that can make age difference less relevant than ideaology difference, thereby providing the sort of stimulating stew pot where sexual interest ripens.

Grade school is little girls runing around with scabbed knees - not young women. Grown men nursing and acting out attractions to grade school students, where the pupil-student dynamic is far more authoritarian/in local parentis than anything else - there is nothing about this setting that should lead one to think Oh, professors hit on their adult female college pupils so of course we should presume fifth grade teachers are doing it too. This does a great disservice to both professors, as the obverse would have to be true - a professor who hits on his adult female student would also hit on a little kid. I'd object to that characterization, were I a professor. Those scenarios are governed by totally different personal and ethical mores.

I wouldn't have expected the education minister to presume the people charged to be teachers to the young would, by nature of the profession, predate them instead. She found out what was going on has has vowed to take steps to address it - that's the right start. No need to scold her for not making wild inductive leaps from the collegiate arena.

You could find it all across the USA. In Delaware, a female Elementary school teacher was just busted for sleeping with a couple of her recent students--recent as in middle school-aged.

It's a horrifying story, but I think you are being too optimistic if you think something will happen.

As Amnesty International has reported, rape is endemic in Nigeria in general, and it doesn't seem like there is any interest in changing this.

The Amnesty International report on rape in Nigeria:

http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAFR440202006

Charlaine Hunter-Gault reported on NPR several months ago about a similar problem in Southern Africa. The way it was solved there was that a group of mothers formed, and patrolled the schools. It worked.