Dealing with sexual harassment

Sandra Kyomuhendo was only 16 when her paternal uncle raped her. She did not know how to break this news to her parents and she decided to remain silent. Like every other teenager, Kyomuhendo’s breasts had started growing, her curves were widening so fast and one could assume she was a grown up woman.

Sandra’s sex hungry uncle made several unsuccessful attempts to have Sandra in his bed again. In her quest for safety, she turned a tomboy. Her dressing code was totally male. She felt safe in the company of boys. According to her, getting close to them, would save her from any form of sexual harassment. Sandra’s mother, unaware of why her daughter resorted to such a lifestyle, detested the behaviour.

Coping mechanism

At 17, Kyomuhendo was sent into a boarding school. Her boyish lifestyle kept her outspaced in the girls’ company.

“After the ugly incident with my uncle, I needed to do something about it and that was how I became a tomboy. I befriended more males. This made my mother really uncomfortable but I was only trying to stop their unnecessary advances,” she says. 

Kyomuhendo is now 34 years old, but has never healed from the incident with her uncle. According to her, befriending men was a coping mechanism to sexual harassment.   

Sexual harassment involves the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favours.

A May 2021 research done by the Human Resources for Health, showed a pattern in men of higher status positions abusing power to coerce sex from female employees throughout the employment section. The same research spotlighted Uganda public health workplaces as a strong base for sex-based harassment.

It also showed that corrupted management practices, silenced reporting and undermined the achievement of the human resource goals, possibilities overlooked in technical discussions of support supervision and performance management.

Sexual abuse by a superior

A study by the Ministry of Health-on-health worker retention done in 2003, showed that around 24 percent of workers, the majority of whom were female nurses, reported that they had been subjected to sexual “abuse” by a superior.

Several other studies show that sexual harassment is largely suffered by the females in many different social settings such as their workplaces, homes, schools, or even religious institutions.

Hannah Arinaitwe, a student leader at Makerere University, says “most times the people who sexually harass women are in high positions of power, people who you thought you are getting help from. These are people we expect assistance, mentorship and protection from.”

She add: “If I make it like out rightly known, it is going to negatively affect me and my reputation. So, I normally just ignore sexual harassment advances and avoid those specific people who I know will harassment,” Hannah said.

Avenue to speak out

According to her, despite attempts by government to reduce sexual harassment cases countrywide, she thinks more needs to be done, such as campaigns to create compulsory avenues for sensitising people about sexual harassment.

 “There is need to ensure that every organisation and association or every company has an avenue for people to speak out about sexual harassment. Every office should be having a designated place where they can go and be vulnerable about their sexual harassment issues with people they are working with,” Arinaitwe adds.

She worries that sexual harassment cases are on the rise because many women fail to speak up about these things to save them public mockery. Silence, parents and the people in power play an important role in breaking the sexual harassment silence. 

“Parents and people in power have failed to create vulnerable spaces for children or people who are lower than them to be open to them about such occurrences. The more you keep quiet about a certain vice, the more it grows. If we became outspoken about it, cases will go down,” she adds. 

Arinaitwe says parents need to listen to their children when they are being harassed, without blaming them, as a way of dealing with uncles harassing their children or fathers harassing their daughters.

Establishing high ups in different organisations, different work places, being open to understanding that people are being harassed and them taking action against people, regardless of the fact that they hold a certain position at work or that they are investors, are great avenues to curb the vice. 

Dr Sara Namusoga-Kaale, a lecturer of Journalism and Communication, Makerere University, says sharing workspace with men makes women feel secure.

“A supervisor once told me that he made women and men share one big office to ward off the wolves. He realised how protective the men were over the women. Relatedly, a friend told me that sharing an office with three other women made her feel secure. Together, they would tell off any potential abusers,” she says.

Sexual harassment vs GBV

Dr Sabrina Bakeera Kitaka, a specialist paediatrician and a senior lecturer at Makerere University College of Health Sciences, relates sexual harassment to gender-based violence. According to her, the silence and a blind eye the media and law makers give to femicide cases, are also the same thing that happens with sexual harassment.

Dr Kitaka cites two femicide examples that give her sleepless nights. Last year during the 16 days against gender based violence, she heard a story on the radio which remains etched on her brain.

“A 24-year-old woman from Bukomansimbi was murdered by her partner, who was frustrated by her inability to bare him a child, despite his total contribution of Shs2m to her up keep. This was a murder most foul,” she says. 

During the Covid-19, lockdown stories of intimate partner violence were rife and mostly went unpublished and unpunished. Some urgent solutions for the mushrooming GBV need to be implemented.

Training professionals to identify, address and respond to gender-based violence, providing training for teachers, youth workers, social workers, trainers, the police, the justice system, health care providers, would go a long way in curbing the vice, says Kitaka.

Revealing the magnitude of the problem, gender-based violence is rarely discussed and data at a local or regional level is often not available, or is incomplete.  Many victims choose not to report incidents and certain forms of violence such as sexist hate speech, which may not be punishable by law. The extent of the problem is made clear.

Betty Ejang, a student at Kyambogo University, says she ensures her dress code is not too revealing or seductive, in order to protect herself from sexual advances. “You see, men are very stubborn people. Even when you do not expose what is underneath your skirt, they will still find ways of making nasty comments or even do bad touches on you,” she says.

“I set my limits and when you go beyond them, I tell you off. People do not pay attention to sexual harassment until it results into rape or loss of a life. Even the words someone speaks can be sexual harassment. Every woman needs boundaries and if any one crosses that line, speak up,” Ejang emphasises.

Mercy Agwen believes that evaluating whether or not a conduct is sexual harassment is important before making the next step of following the company’s sexual harassment complaint procedures.

“I have never been caught up in a sexual harassment situation at my work place because I set my limits with the people I deal work with. I try to avoid situations that would breed such acts. But should it happen, I will not hesitate to report to the authorities or write a formal letter highlighting it,’’ says Agwen.

What the law says

Under the Employment Act, the Employment (Sexual Harassment) Regulations, 2012 were made pursuant to sections 7and 97(1) of the parent Act, under the regulations, “harassment” means verbal or physical abuse or behaviour that unreasonably interferes with work or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment including intimidation. 

Deliberate insults related to a person’s personal or professional competence; threatening or insulting comments, whether oral or written including by e-mail; and deliberate desecration of religious or national symbols or both. The Act stipulates that every employer with more than 25 employees shall adopt a written policy against sexual harassment.