Training on Prevention of Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment includes any unwelcome sexually determined behaviour, whether directly or by implication. It includes physical contact and advances, a demand or request for sexual favours, sexually-coloured remarks, showing pornography or any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature. Studies reveal that sexual harassment is endemic, often hidden and present in different forms within organisations. Very often, these forms of sexual harassment are so subtle and covert that women tend to stay silent about it and accept it as ‘normal’ behaviour and their reactions as abnormal. Which gives rise to the belief that sexual harassment is a trivial issue, and therefore does not need to be addressed. Sexual harassment has a deep, negative and long lasting traumatic impact on women, mentally, emotionally and physically. Sexual harassment is therefore viewed as an act of violence against women as well as a violation of their human rights. While the prevention of sexual harassment has been one of the central concerns of the women’s movement since the 1980s, we find that incidences of sexual harassment are still on the increase with increasing numbers of women entering the workplace and more girls going to college. This is exacerbated by the fact that there is limited awareness on the issue.

How many of us remember carrying safety pins while travelling on a DTC bus or growing our nails to dig into those clammy hands that inadvertently found the same space that our hands occupied on the support bars? How many of us remember the cheesy lab assistants who offered to help if we were ‘nice’ to them and the `bhaiya’ in the canteen who also took our hands along with our dirty plates? Ten years ago this was a reality and it is still one that students face on campus and when travelling to college. Sexual harassment is not only a reality that working women face but is also something that is reported by students on college campuses and other educational institutions against their teachers, principals, management representatives, seniors and peers. Young girls need to beware of the mobile phone with a camera and all those apps that help you display, capture and morph – all in the name of creativity. In the world of physical stalking, girls now also have to deal with “Facebook stalking”.

These were the primary issues discussed at the training workshop conducted by PRIA for the Delhi Commission for Women at Hans Raj College, Delhi University on 15 March 2012. Twenty-seven students, non-teaching staff and teaching staff who together represented 7 College Complaints Committees from the North and South Campuses of Delhi University participated in this training.

The hosts for the training, Hans Raj College, with a student body of 5000 students and 500 teaching staff, boasts of a composition of 59 per cent females in the student body and 60 per cent female teachers. Having accepted sexual harassment as a growing reality, Hans Raj College is one of the first colleges to discuss it in an open forum in order to better deal with it.

At the start of the session, participants were quick to identify that a workplace is defined not only by the physical premises, but also through the relationships of individuals in the context of their employment; which could mean a restaurant that the college professor takes a student out to, the college canteen, the seat on the bus that the professor and student might share as well as the ‘mithai’ shop that is located across the road from the college. Bringing about a behavioural change was felt to be important and sexual harassment could be prevented if there were concerted efforts made by the committee to create awareness on the issue. The members of the “triple Cs” (as the College Complaints Committee is popularly referred to in the language of the university) decided that it must begin by creating its own visibility on campus and explored some of the ways in which this could be done, such as creating an email account and a helpline, posters and billboards as well as organising debates and awareness workshops on the theme.

Participants were taken through an exercise that enabled them to explore and build on their own understanding of sexual harassment at the workplace through an exercise on case study analysis in small mixed groups. The workshop also focused on examining the attitudes, beliefs and myths that exist around sexual harassment and the impacts from the experience. The training was conducted using the principles of adult education and participatory methodologies.

The learning at the workshop was enhanced by the richness of the diverse experiences that the teaching staff brought to it having dealt with various cases, such as that of a young girl being told by her teacher that she was getting good grades because he thought she was ‘cute’; the case of the boy with a brilliant academic record who was caught forcibly pinning a girl in a compromising position in the college canteen; and cases of student molestation during a study tour. These were corroborated by the experiences of students who reported being sexually harassed sometimes as often as five times a day.