WUNRN
ZIMBABWE - SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN
HIGHER EDUCATION
By
Chumile Jamela -Zimbabwe - May 10, 2011
Lisa
Kunene’s* path to higher learning has been a painful one. A 20-year-old
first-year engineering student at one of the top universities in Zimbabwe, she
was born to a poor communal farmer in rural Matebeleland South, one of the
country's driest provinces. She has had to endure the worst economic hardships.
So it came as a big surprise and relief when she learned that she had been
admitted into university. This was supposed to open the way to a very bright
future, as well as provide a stepping-stone to the empowerment she had been
waiting for all her life.
Today
Lisa finds herself fending off advances from randy lecturers, while at the same
time fighting to attain her dreams. Lisa is one of many female students in the
same position, where sexual favors, not aptitude, will get her higher grades.
Despite official government pronouncements and policy declarations about women's empowerment, female students in Zimbabwe's centers of higher learning report that they are increasingly subjected to sexual harassment by their lecturers.
According to the Students And Youths Working on Reproductive Health Action
Team (SAYWHAT), a student membership-based organization whose thrust is to
address the sexual and reproductive health challenges of students in Zimbabwe's
tertiary institutions, there is high prevalence of sexual harassment cases in
colleges and students have limited knowledge of legal recourse.
Students, especially those from out of town with no nearby relatives, find
themselves in vulnerable positions because of their economic circumstances.
This makes getting through college very hard. Lecturers and other well-to-do
men often target them for what they see as cheap sex.
As a recent report by the University of Zimbabwe's Centre for Population
Studies titled Sex and Sexuality Amongst University of Zimbabwe Students
states, "female students mainly form sexual networks to gain material
things from ‘sugar daddies' and married working class men who provide material
things such as accommodation and financial security.”
Lisa knows this only too well.
"One of my professors called me to his office after I had failed his
paper. He gave me a choice, sleep with me and get everything you want
(including a Class 1 degree), or continue failing," says a visibly
miserable Lisa. She cannot help but cry as she relates her ordeal at the hands
of a lecturer at the university.
"I don't know about these city girls, but where I come from, sex between
unmarried people is taboo. So now I'm left with only two choices: sacrifice my
values, all that I know and believe in, or give up my dream."
With colleges charging between $400 USD and $800 USD per semester, in a country
where some employees go for months without salaries, some students actually
solicit sex. They flirt and make advances on their lecturers in order to afford
fees, accommodation, toiletries, and food, effectively creating an unending
cycle of sexual abuse. Females are cynically seen as having an advantage over
male students, as they can use sex - voluntarily or by force - to get their
degrees and diplomas.
A male lecturer at one of the country's teacher training colleges, who while
admitting that the sexual abuse of females was not new, said that it had
recently taken on a more sinister dimension. As he spoke, I could not help but
ask myself what he was doing as a male lecturer to stop this.
"These lecturers make a bad name for all of us because they actually prey
on vulnerable students who have no means of support and who can’t report them
for fear of expulsion. But what can I do even if I know this? Nothing,"
claims the lecturer.
Although universities have some guidelines on disciplinary and ethical conduct
for staff, there is no clear policy from the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary
Education in Zimbabwe on what happens to perpetrators of sexual harassment.
They get away with it. Most students are intimidated into not reporting. Some
fear for the future of their studies should any action not go in their favour.
I have yet to see a public example of a lecturer being disciplined for sexual
harassment in tertiary institutions.
I read the other day in the Sunday Mail, a local paper, about a school
principal who learned a male teacher was abusing one of his students. Instead
of reporting the case to the police, the headmaster had the student transferred
to another school to cover up the abuse. That was the end of it.
Lately, when I watch the news bulletin on national television or read the local
state-owned papers, there is always something about women's empowerment. Since
the country is preparing for elections and women form the largest voting bloc,
I dismiss it in part as political campaigning. The sexual abuse of female students
continues despite government rhetoric championing women's rights. For me the
question to ask is: if empowerment does not begin at the centres where
tomorrow's leaders are ostensibly being groomed, is there any sincerity at all
in such pronouncements?
Higher education is supposed to give women options and strengthen their chances
when competing with their male counterparts. These young women are experiencing
dis-empowerment at a stage when they should be preparing for entry into the
country's political, economic, and corporate sectors as leaders and decision
makers.
Women now have to work twice as hard to prove that they got their degrees by
merit and not by sleeping their way through college. Many females in positions
of power agree that all efforts at gender equity will come to naught if these
young women trying to better their lives are subjected to degrading acts by the
very people who are supposed to be pushing them to achieve.
Tabitha Khumalo, a Movement for Democratic Change senior official, said
recently that female university students will not assume any positions of power
after they graduate if they are not empowered right from college. Khumalo
believes this empowerment ought to begin with a conducive environment for
education, where women are viewed as equal to their male colleagues.
A member of the Student Representative Council (SRC) - a body that represents
students' affairs in universities and colleges - says that the situation is
worsened by the fact that colleges do not have enough housing for all students.
Students have to look for alternative accommodations in the neighbouring
suburbs, where greedy landlords charge exorbitant rental fees for a room shared
by at least four students.
"These students, especially the rural folk, just can’t afford these
expenses and at the same time still raise money to pay fees, so they are
vulnerable and fall victim to these preying lecturers and sugar daddies who
promise them money for food and other expenses."
As far back as the 1990s researchers have investigated this sexual abuse and,
while admitting this is widespread, offer no conclusive statistics about the
disturbing phenomenon. Perhaps because the female students do not make official
complaints about their experiences.
The National AIDS Council (NAC), a government body, has said that colleges and
tertiary institutions have become a hotbed for the transmission of HIV/AIDS.
There remain, however, no visible initiatives to protect female students on the
path to higher education.
Lisa looks shattered when I ask her what choice she will make.
"What good is a first class degree if I get HIV?"
It is therefore obvious that we are still a long way off in our efforts to
better the lives of the girl child if they have to go through all these
difficulties and degradations and are still expected to perform well in class.
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