Stamp out sexual harassment now
A probe report released by Makerere University on Monday confirming rampant cases of sexual harassment of female students by lecturers is damning. For far too long, the university administrators have sunk their heads in the sand and pretended all was well despite many reports that the plague was eating up Uganda’s oldest and premier university. But this evidence-based report should yank Makerere University out of that pretence.
The report comes many years after several accusations have been locked up in lecturers’ offices and swept under their office carpets. This much-needed report, it can be argued, was only accelerated after a hard push by some external financiers of the university programmes.
Nonetheless, the assurance by Vice Chancellor Prof Barnabas Nawangwe of zero-tolerance to the ills and taking decisive action on all cases reported, is welcome. But the plague does not ravage only Makerere. This means this report should also open the eyes of administrators and students in all other institutions of learning. The same applies to workers and managers in all workplaces.
Now should be the time that Ugandans considered sexual harassment as one of the worst cases of moral corruption. Unfortunately, this plague is most times overlooked, with victims suffering silently and offenders going unpunished. Yet sexual harassment is punishable under our penal code.
The law is categorical that any inappropriate physical conduct involving touches, patting, pinching, stroking, kissing, and hugging, fondling, and using job-related pressures or rewards in inducing sexual favours are wrong.
These inappropriate conducts also include those that have ordinarily been considered ‘innocent’.
In this category are sexually explicit jokes and stories, inappropriate physical intimacy, and repeated and unwanted invitations for dates.
These practices are bad baits for learning and job incentives as well as disincentives.
They compromise performances, awards, and promotions, among other evils. This is precisely why cases of sexual harassment must be given due attention, are promptly handled, and appropriate and corrective action taken.
Going forward, institutions of learning and workplaces should accept that sexual harassment is rampant and a deadly, but silent plague eating up our moral fibre. This then requires that institutions establish rigorous anti-sexual harassment units to check such abuses.
Just as the Makerere team suggested, sexual harassment cuts across both horizontal and vertical levels of relationships. This then demands all-embracive policies covering culpability by both levels; namely staff-to-staff or peer-to-peer, as well persons in authority or leadership.
For institutions of learning, there is need to institute open guidelines for award of marks for tests, coursework, and exams, and also tracing missing marks to avoid abuse.
Overall, just as the Makerere team recommended, punitive anti-sexual harassment measures need to be stringent and deterrent enough.
