The East African Standard (Nairobi)

ANALYSIS
June 14, 2003
Posted to the web June 16, 2003

Marceline Nyambala
Nairobi

Sexual, physical and psychological violence causes as much of a burden of ill health and death among women aged 15 to 44 years as cancer, and more than malaria and traffic accidents combined. According to a Panos Institute report, such violence also occurs in the very places where girls and young women should be safe - in schools, universities and higher education institutes. The report, Beyond victims and villains - addressing sexual violence in the education sector, cites extensive case studies from around the world to show that girls and young women are subjected to a wide range of violent and aggressive behaviours. from verbal abuse to rape.

Being subject to sexual violence or harassment is extremely threatening to a student's physical safety and psychological welfare, both immediately and in the longer term. As a result of sexual violence, harassment, and coercion, a student may avoid class or not want to talk in class, have difficulty concentrating, lose trust in school officials, become isolated, have a lower academic attainment or drop out of school.

At Jimma University in Ethiopia, violence, harassment and lack of security were cited as the most common problems women students faced. At the University of Dar-es-salaam, Tanzania, a secret group called PUNCH, believed to be male, periodically claimed to research the sexual history of a given female student and print it out on a big poster conspicuously placed with the insignia of the group, a red skull. Often the face of the student was superimposed with a nude picture scanned out of a pornographic magazine. In February a student committed suicide, in part, it is believed, because of the harassment of the group.

Educators' perceptions of, and reactions to sexual violence vary considerably. Often there is a reluctance to admit it is a problem. Where educators are aware of the problem and are unhappy about it, the numbers that actively object and respond are considerably smaller.

Although aware that there is a problem, even teachers who would like to address it, often do nothing. The Human Rights Watch report states that "Sometimes school officials appear to have failed to respond adequately because they did not know what to do; other times they just ignored the problem: still other times they appear to have been afraid to assist," says the report.

In many instances, schools actively discouraged victims of school based gender violence from alerting anyone outside the school or accessing the justice system. A retired head teacher said: "schools find sexual abuse embarrassing and often times will attempt to sweep it under the carpet. The survivor is left to swim or sink, there're no support systems designed to assist."

The report attributes the St Kizito incident on July 14, 1991, where 19 girls were killed and 71 raped ,to this attitude. The headmaster had reported that in the past the male students would drag their female colleagues to the forest and do their thing. A Zimbabwean study in co-educational secondary school found that teachers often collude with male pupils in the verbal harassment of girls in the classroom, directly or by omission.

Teachers sometimes feel that girls should be more assertive and stand up for themselves. Like many parents and even students they adhere to the false notion that girls bring it on themselves and are to blame for violence or harassment.