Education is so important for your development, but there are some challenges (to put it mildly) that mainly female students face. So, one of the topics that will be covered in our documentary is the personal impact of sexual harassment in school.

Although very few official numbers are available, it is known that in Nigeria in higher educational institutions lecturers often make unwanted sexual advances, request sexual favors from female students, or commit acts of sexual violence. Already within the group of trainees that participated in last year's research and video training, almost all of them recalled stories about female class mates being harassed by their teacher. Some of them experienced it themselves. But so far, reporting these teachers has had little impact.

In government schools and at universities hardly any official structures are available to prevent or punish teachers. It is not uncommon that teachers actually conspire in harassing girls, protect each other, and just deny everything - like happened to some of the girls. Because any punishment is lacking they feel free to do whatever they like. And because of the strong African tradition of respecting elders, the girls are often not supported but instead accused of leading the teachers on. Tactics the girls use to prevent themselves from being harassed by teachers were for example: keep your legs together, don't wear make-up, keep quiet, et cetera. Students perceive the harassment as a 'normal phenomenon', and most of them view it as a 'normal' part of school life one has to endure.

But this burden shouldn't be on the girls. And hopefully government and schools take up responsibility to take action in stopping and preventing sexual harassment.