Sexual harassment to be criminalised to protect students

Zimbabwe is formulating a sexual harassment bill to criminalise abuse following studies that show sexual harassment, especially by lecturers, is rampant in the higher education sector. The call for legislation follows a petition submitted to parliament by a local non-governmental organisation.

Jimmy Wilford, the director of SAYWHAT, a non-profit organisation, said students have raised concerns over the absence of effective policies to both prevent and manage sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment at tertiary institutions around the country.

The victimisation of students is perpetuated because perpetrators take advantage of the loopholes, rendering the victims powerless. He said that, in some instances, the policies (some outdated) exist but there is no proper implementation to safeguard victims of sexual harassment.

Wilford said there is evidence that many cases go unreported due to various factors such as the fear of stigma and victimisation, lack of confidentiality in the handling of such cases, as well as bureaucratic and unfriendly reporting and management procedures.

In most cases, the students do not get adequate legal and social support as the systems at college level are hostile and biased towards perpetrators who, in most instances, are the staff members, including lecturers.

“Available data from research done from December 2019 to April 2021 by SAYWHAT and partners under the Spotlight Initiative and with the support of UNFPA [United Nations Population Fund] shows that sexual exploitation, abuse and sexual harassment is increasing in Zimbabwean institutions of higher learning,” he said.

“The most common form of exploitation involves lecturers soliciting sexual favours in exchange for good grades, commonly referred to as ‘sex for grades’ or ‘thigh for marks’,” he added.

Lindiwe Maphosa, the chairperson of the parliamentary committee on higher education, said in an interview with University World News that the committee has teamed up with the parliamentary committees on women’s affairs and labour to push for the new law.

The legislator said cases of sexual harassment led to disciplinary hearings or the transfer of perpetrators to other institutions of higher learning, but they now want offenders to be prosecuted.

“We want to criminalise sexual harassment. That is what we are pushing for as committees following the petition,” she said.

Maphosa said that, before the latest move, the committee summoned the higher education permanent secretary, Professor Fanuel Tagwira, and other officials for a hearing, but the investigation was interrupted by the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020.

She said the call for a hearing came after the committee received a lot of complaints from students over sexual harassment.

Men and women to be protected

Maphosa said they discovered that most students do not report cases of sexual harassment to the relevant authorities.

They have since established that the reporting structures at universities are problematic as they promote impunity.

“For example, if the perpetrator is the dean or a male lecturer and the dean is male, they can connive to try and silence you or to ask questions that will lead to the withdrawal of the accusations,” she said.

Zimbabwe National Students Union president Takudzwa Ngadziore said the union supported the enactment of the law to fight sexual harassment to protect both female and male students as lecturers have “weaponised” their profession.

He said there are increasing reports of lecturers abusing students in exchange for a pass.

The SAYWHAT report said some female students also encountered offers of extra academic help and study aids by lecturers, while others encountered offers of mostly food, accommodation, transport and money by non-academic staff and students, all in exchange for sexual relationships.

Ngadziore said the bill must be gender-sensitive and tackle issues affecting both male and female students. He said there are some students who are suffering in silence due to sexual harassment and the new law would be an important step in giving them a voice.

“We should also not be silent about the issues of sexual harassment that are happening among students. The bill will protect the victims.

“We also need to note the issue of intergenerational relationships which are being forced on the girl child who has no voice and is forced to act at the mercy of perpetrators. The new law must protect students from fellow students, lecturers and members of the administration,” he said.

Lack of policies problematic

Wilford said that, at present, Zimbabwe does not have a comprehensive policy and guidelines that can help institutions of higher learning respond to exploitation, abuse, and sexual harassment.

“The policy framework for responding to the abuse is characterised by separate and independent pieces of legislation making it easy for the perpetrators to continue in their abusive ways.

“It must be acknowledged that the Parliament of Zimbabwe has been holding consultations on the sexual harassment bill and that the [Zimbabwe] Public Service Commission is also working on a sexual harassment policy for government employees,” he said.

Wilford said it has been established that very few institutions of higher learning in Zimbabwe have policies that are enforceable and protective of victims of abuse and sexual harassment, who are often traumatised for life.

The government, through the ministry of higher education, science and technology, should expedite coordinating university and college authorities to make the various campuses across the country safe for the students, especially female students.

Wilford said SAYWHAT, with the support of the UNFPA, has developed guidelines for the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse to support various institutions to respond to cases of sexual harassment and abuse.

He said the organisation had also developed a prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse online course for students and young people in Zimbabwe with the aim of increasing their knowledge of sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.

The online course is a direct response to the findings of the SAYWHAT studies that pointed to the fact that students and young people are failing to report abuse and exploitation due to lack of knowledge.

According to a 2015 baseline study by the Female Students Network Trust (FSNT, Zimbabwe), a non-profit, membership-based organisation working with young women in tertiary education, 97% of female students had experienced sexual harassment.

The study, which was awarded the UNESCO Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education in 2016, was conducted at universities, polytechnics, and teachers’ colleges.

The report said about 94% of students indicated that they had experienced sexual harassment of some sort from lecturers and non-teaching staff in return for favours, including being forced into unprotected sex. Some female students said they were forced to take alcohol and drugs beforehand.

They said they were forced to use family planning methods including emergency methods such as Postinor (an emergency contraceptive) in relationships with older men, lecturers, and non-academic staff. Other students, according to the report, had been forced by lecturers and non-academic staff to terminate pregnancies.

The figures, the report said, could even be higher as many students said they could not remember what happened while they were under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Some students reported having encountered date rape by older men, mostly lecturers and non-academic staff.

Other female students claimed they encountered unsolicited physical contact such as touching, petting, and hugging by their lecturers, non-academic staff and students, while others received inappropriate remarks about their gender and sexuality, including sarcastic criticism of their weight, body parts such as breasts and buttocks and their clothes, mostly from male students.