Pakistan

Laws against harassment

K-P senior minister recommends ‘women should not attend co-education institutes’ to shield themselves from harassment.

Riaz Ahmad February 26, 2014

The issue of sexual harassment of female students at the educational institutes of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) province has resurfaced once again. This time, it has sparked a heated debate between the opposition and the government benches in the provincial assembly. Students held an on-campus demonstration against harassment incidents on January 28.

A committee has been formed to probe the matter, a move opposed by one of the province’s senior minister who recommended that ‘women should not attend co-education institutes’ in order to shield themselves from harassment. He lauded the fact that former Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal government had catered to separate medical colleges for men and women.

Sexual harassment of female university students is more than unfortunate, but I am short of words over the minister’s unsettling recommendation, which can simply not be condemned enough. However, thankfully, a senior leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and many lawmakers from the Pakistan Peoples Party favoured the measure of probing harassment on the assembly floor and now the committee is ready to investigate the matter.

It must be understood that reporting harassment is a very brave step by the victim. Owing to substantial gray areas, there is often a lot of ambiguity on what boils down to harassment and what doesn’t. In this way, harassment, as a crime, is more challenging to deal with than rape. But in cases of both rape and harassment, victims are usually leery about raising a voice, which strengthens the perpetrators’ evil resolves. Needless to say, there is a dire need to facilitate victim, to provide them backing and to cater to a platform where they can respectable register their complaints.

Moreover, the harassment of female students has two-pronged consequences. It not only debilitates a student mentally, but also hinders his/her academic performance. Students become poor at academics not because of a lack of talent, but because of the evil designs of those who like to abuse their power.

The most important thing behind cases of harassment could be the fact that teachers and male staffers who harass students have political affiliations which is why they fear no one. This state of affairs can only be negated by giving victims an equally strong backing. There should be a committee in each and every university, comprising also of students’ parents, to take care of such complaints and those involved should be dealt with accordingly.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 26^th, 2014.

COMMENTS (2)

Maliha | 10 years ago | Reply

Thank you Riaz Ahmad for writing a very positive article. Actually after the laws against sexual harassment were passed in March of 2010, Peshawar University was one of the first universities to comply with it. I remember a few cases were reported and handled in a very responsible manner. This was in the days of Dr. Sara Safdar who had taken concrete steps to make the environment in the university more dignified. She was planning on having all the departments appoint Standing Inquiry Committees as prescribed in the law before she retired. We are still very hopeful that the University management will take up the work where she had left it off. I was a student of this university a long time ago and always took pride on how the environment of our university was so much better than that of other universities in the country.

I am working on the implementation of anti-sexual harassment legislation and am willing to work with the management on effective implementation of these laws. We can help set up the mechanism given in the law and also train the Inquiry Committee members so that they can properly conduct inquiry of these cases, even in the absence of evidence and witnesses. Please let me know how I can help. This is one of the best universities in the country and needs to stay that way to educate our future generations.

Fouzia saeed | 10 years ago | Reply Thank you for an article genuinely raising the questions and concerns. When discussing the issue in such detail it is necessary to mention that there is a law against sexual harassment (Protection Against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2010) which is applicable to the universities also, Thus one doesn't have to reinvent the wheel. According to this law and HEC policy for complain with this law issued in January 2011 includes students also. The compliance has been started in most of the universities. Within KP some of the universities have already terminated people after inquiry under this law. The need is to push for a better compliance. The parliament should only tell the universities to comply and not start probing themselves. There is an implementation Watch Committee in the province with the mandate to facilitate implementation of this law. There is a Provincial watch commission on the Status of Women. There is a whole machinery that has been put in place for getting the law implemented. Several trainings have been conducted. These things take time but my main point is that in order to make a difference build what has been put there. Do your homework. NO need for every person to start from scratch. KP has a law, HEC policy, universities adopting the policy, a watch committee. many inquiry committees have been trained. Also go on www.sexualharassment.com to check who in KP has adopted the anti sexual harassment policy and push universities to comply and make their committees. Build on efforts that have been made already in this arena.

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