On Monday, May 3, 2021, the parliament of Uganda confirmed that the Sexual Offences Bill (2019) had passed its third reading, ending its years-long passage through the chamber.

While it’s a multifaceted infringement, criminalising sex work and same-sex relations, the piece of legislature confirmed two things:

1. While the rest of the world works tirelessly to hasten recovery from the devastations of the COVID-19 global pandemic, many of Africa’s leadership have their eyes on the wrong priorities.
2. Africa’s younger men demography has a responsibility to learn from the folly of their fathers if the continent is to progress while carrying everyone along.

The object of the bill to enact specific laws on sexual offences for the effectual prevention of sexual violence, enhance punishment of sexual offenders, improve the protection of victims during sexual offences trials, was largely jettisoned after a heated debate that saw mostly male parliamentarians redefining consent.

Sexual consent – which should be freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic and specific, was redefined by Ugandan parliamentarians to exclude its withdrawal mid-sex because in the words of Rep. Thomas Tayebwa, “Consent is given at the stage of takeoff, all of us fly. We are on a plane and we have taken off at a cruise speed, and you say stop! Stop! What do you want the Pilot to do? To crash the plane?”

The argument is as unoriginal as it is flawed.

In a 1979 sexual assault case in North Carolina, US, a state Supreme Court Justice stated “If the actual penetration is accomplished with the woman’s consent, the accused is not guilty of rape, although he may be guilty of another crime because of his subsequent actions.”

Essentially, once consent is given, it cannot legally be taken away. Effectively taking the agency of women away by fiat.

Nigeria is far from a model country when it comes to the matter of victim protection on matters of sexual violence.

Laws on sexual harassment in Nigeria are inadequate for victims of sexual harassment to be properly protected.

Marital rape is still not recognised by law.

“Daughters do not have to inherit the silence of their mothers” – Ijeoma Umebinyuo.

While younger Nigerian women continue to break the shackles from their wrists passed down by some of the harmful ways of their mothers, younger Nigerian men may be doing the opposite.

If we stand any chance of reigning in the menace of sexual violence, younger men must also begin to toe the line of not inheriting the ignorance of their fathers.

If our fathers believe women’s bodies are ours for the taking, we must reject their poisoned ‘wisdom’ and walk the path of honouring women’s bodily autonomy.

Doing otherwise is confounding that inheritance of ignorance into willful ignorance, and the future has no room for the willfully ignorant.