Abstract:
Recent studies have shown that violence against women politicians in sub Saharan Africa is increasingly recognised globally as a key impediment to their
participation in politics. This follows the troubling increase in documented cases of
abuse, threat, harassment and intimidation aimed at women politicians on the
continent. Consequently, bias toward women occupying political positions originates
from the structural, cultural and symbolic violence, which differentiates this practice
from other forms of political violence. This study provides an extensive
understanding of the physical and mental sexual harassment of women in sub Saharan African politics. It draws attention comparatively to this conundrum by
drawing on the experience of women in Nigeria and Uganda. While it is a known
that sexual harassment pervades the Nigerian and Ugandan political space, available
data are very slim since cases are often underreported and when they do, are not
pursued to a logical conclusion. A major impact of this is that women are reluctant to
participate and be involved in the political and decision-making framework of their
respective countries. In this study, primary and secondary sources were adopted and
critically examined and analysed. The methodology adopted is based on content
analysis of the sources used. Part of the results of the study shows that sexual
harassment is associated with sexuality, patriarchy and gender power differences
which is a huge factor that helps to perpetuate the conduct in sub-Saharan Africa.
Secondly, gender-based violence against women has become normalised accounting
for why women are often the victims of the conduct
