The Senate has started considering a bill seeking to stop employers in the private and public sectors from engaging employable Nigerian graduates as casual workers.
The bill, tagged, “The Prohibition of Casualization Bill 2020, is sponsored by Senator Ago Akinyelure representing Ondo Central.
Speaking on the floor of the red chamber, Akinyelure, who was particular about the banking industry, said banks had turned most female employers hired as ” marketers ” into harlots and sexual slaves in a desperate bid to meet unrealisable targets.
The Senator observed that casualization of graduates in the Nigerian labour market has become a subject of great concern to everyone.
Akinyelure said more workers continue to groan under the strategy of cutting costs by employers rendering them inferior to their counterparts in other countries.
He said, “Young graduates are employed as marketers and given unrealistic targets. The female desperate in keeping their jobs turned to harlotry and sex slavery, moving from one office to the other looking for invisible customers. It is high time this evil act is stopped,”.
Also Senator Biodun Olujimi, representing Ekiti South, known for always supporting child and female rights, expressed her unalloyed support for the bill, adding that banks have turned many girls into prostitutes under the guise of using them for marketing.
Olujimi, who lamented the sad development, stressed that marketers are not promoted if they don’t bring in funds.
While admitting that banking institutions are set up to make profits, she said this does not, however, give them the liberty to turn their staff into chattels.
Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege also decried the treatment of casual workers by oil companies operating in Nigeria.
Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, charged the Committee on Employment, Labour and Productivity to strike a balance to ensure that casual workers are not made victims of layoffs.
The bill after scaling second reading was referred to the Committee on Employment, Labour and Productivity.
A report is expected within four weeks.
