Anita Saleem
In Pakistan the voices of numerous people go unheard on issues such as power outage, inflation, CNG shortage, and of late, even the recent elections.
Although the title of this article could easily refer to any of these marginalized voices, my specific focus is on one group of people and their agony. I refer here to university and college students who often face sexual harassment, and are perhaps one of the least heard groups within our otherwise loud society.
While everyone seems comfortable discussing and debating national issues, personal issues like harassment often go unaddressed. There are a number of reasons why young students may not report abuse. First and foremost, several youth are unable to discern whether their experiences amount to harassment. Secondly, the harassment might be instigated by an individual in a position of power, such as a professor, a teaching assistant or someone high up in the administration. And last but not least, young people are often afraid that disclosing such information would lead to them being judged harshly by others.
Interestingly however, students are not the only people who face these problems; in fact this is a much broader issue that exists at all levels in our society. Regardless of age, gender, occupational status and social class, people can and do experience harassment in various forms. Single women in employment seem to be particularly vulnerable to verbal, physical and sexual abuse.
Although seeking to control harassment at all levels may be too great a task for the immediate future, there are certainly things that can be done at an institutional level.
So what exactly can educational institutions do to put an end to this?
Firstly, students need to be educated about their rights. In 2010, the Senate passed a bill against harassment of women whereby the offenders were subjected to 3-year imprisonment and a fine of Rs 0.5 million. Quoting the exact words of Section 509 in the Pakistan Penal Code 1860, anyone who “conducts sexual advances, or demands sexual favours or uses written or verbal communication or physical conduct of a sexual nature which intends to annoy, insult, intimidate or threaten the other person” is to be found guilty.
Although the primary purpose of this act is to protect women in the workplace, it would be a good starting point for educating university students about their rights as citizens as it provides a basic idea of what should be considered offensive. The first part of the act states that whoever is found “intending to insult the modesty of any woman, utters any word, makes any sound or gesture, or exhibits any object, intending that such word or sound shall be heard, or that such gesture or object shall be seen, by such woman, or intrudes upon the privacy of such woman” is guilty.
At an institutional level it is helpful if these issues are addressed explicitly. Perhaps the university catalogue or the student handbook would be a good place to insert a section on sexual harassment, where details of what exactly constitutes sexual harassment are clearly outlined. Very few universities like Forman Christian College and LUMS have actually done this so far.
The next step should be to allow discussions on this topic and form a reporting authority where students can lodge their complaints with empirical evidence (where possible). Reporting against someone in a position of power can be quite a daunting prospect in itself and therefore it is essential to assure students that the institution is ready to hear their complaints and take serious action (in the form of warnings, or in more severe cases, termination).
The Higher Education Commission formulated the ‘Policy Guidelines against Sexual Harassment at Institutions of Higher Learning’ in 2011 in which institutions were instructed to establish sexual harassment committees and were asked to penalize such acts. Even though the implementation of this policy is supposed to at least decrease the incidence of sexual harassment – if not end it altogether – 98 out of 138 universities and degree awarding institutes (DAI) in the country have yet to adopt it. Recently, the HEC published a list of the university rankings, but what remains doubtful is whether this list has taken into consideration the security provided to students by those institutions.
Lastly and perhaps most importantly, students need to know that they won’t be blamed for having been subjected to harassment. It is a sad fact that victims are often blamed in our society for somehow ‘inviting’ the abuse. Therefore students must be given the right to file complaints anonymously. Furthermore, counseling facilities should be made available for those students who have suffered the trauma of sexual harassment, with confidentiality remaining a core value.
If an institution receives complaints of this nature from its students it should be considered a matter of pride for the mere fact that the voices which have so often gone unheard are finally being given a chance to be heard.
The writer is a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Forman Christian College, Lahore and tweets @anitasaleem
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