Sexual harassment at edn institutions alarming

Incidents of sexual harassment in educational institutions go unabated across the country as a High Court order issued in 2009 for installing a complaint committee at every institution is not being followed properly, allege educationists and rights activists. 
They said that most cases of sexual harassment in seats of learning remained unreported, because accused people frequently used political influences to neutralise complaints and the authorities concerned did not monitor the formation and working of the committees at the institutions. 
In a recent act of sexual harassment followed by an attempt to suppress the incident, Nusrat Jahan Rafi, 18, student of Sonagazi Islamia Senior Fazil Madrassah at Sonagazi upazila in Feni, died on Wednesday, after a brave fight against the madrassah principal for groping her in his office room on March 27.
On April 6, she was set ablaze nine days after her mother lodged a case accusing the principal of harassing the girl sexually.
After Nusrat succumbed to her burn injuries at hospital on Wednesday, political, socio-cultural, rights and student organisations in the capital and elsewhere in the country took to the street demanding justice.
Other students of the same madrassah said that the principal, Siraj-ud-Doula, committed the same offence against them, too, on various occasions.
In another incident of sexual abuse, the students of computer science and engineering department of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University in Gopalganj have been on hunger strike and boycott of classes and exams demanding punishment of a teacher who allegedly assaulted two female students sexually in January. 
The two female students submitted two complaints with the university authorities in February, demanding punishment for assistant department chair Md Akkas Ali, who allegedly assaulted them on January 24 and 25 respectively when they went to his office room to submit their thesis papers.
At Barishal University, the authorities dismissed its registrar Monirul Islam from his service on April 9 after the allegation of sexual harassment by him was found well-grounded by a probe committee.
Jashore University of Science and Technology authorities recently suspended and served a show-cause notice on Rakib Rahman, an employee at the university’s central library, on allegation of sexually harassing a female student. 
The High Court on May 14, 2009, in response to a writ petition, ordered the installation of a complaint committee at every educational institution and workplace to deal with complaints about sexual harassment.
A report of Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum, a child rights body, revealed that there were 15 reported incidents of rapes by teachers and four allegations of sexual harassment by teachers in the first three months of this year. 
According to the United Nations’ 2013 situational analysis on Bangladesh’s women, a staggering 76 per cent of the female students faced incidents of sexual harassment in eight universities of the country.
Despite the High Court order to set up a complaint committee at every educational institution, officials of Directorate of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education and Directorate of Madrasah Education confirmed that they did have no information about how many institutions under them had so far complied with the directive. 
According to University Grants Commission, 35 of the country’s 49 public universities and 53 of the 103 private universities had put in place these committees till date. 
In the capital, there is no such committee at Mohammadpur Government High School, Shaheed Sheikh Rasel Government High School, Ganabhaban Government High School, T&T High School (Motijheel), Lalbagh Government Model School and College, Nazrul Shikkhalay and Sher-e-Bangla Higher Secondary School, institution officials said. 
There are also no committees formed at Government City College in Chattogram, Azam Khan Government Commerce College in Khulna and Madinatul Ulum Kamil Madrasah in Rajshahi. 
Madinatul Ulum Madrasah principal Md Muqaddasul Islam, however, said that they would sit for forming the committee on Monday. 
Also, some of these educational institutions’ heads said that they had installed complaint boxes to submit allegations on sexual harassment. 
Campaign For Popular Education executive director and former caretaker government adviser Rasheda K Choudhury observed that most of the cases of sexual harassment were covered up at the institution level. 
She said that the implementation of the High Court order was making a poor progress as there were no strict mechanisms for monitoring as to if the institutions were installing these committees and if they were preparing and submitting reports. 
Shishu Adhikar Forum director Abdus Shahid Mahmood said that in most cases students, especially at madrassahs, did not complain against sexual harassment. 
He, in this regard, mentioned an incident of molestation of a male madrassah student by his teacher over a long time in the capital’s Mohammadpur area. 
Most of the educational institutions have not complied with the High Court directive as they either do not know about it or simply do not care, Mahmood said. 
‘Even those institutions which have committees in place cannot work properly due to pressure from local influential people,’ he further said. 
Regarding the incident about Nusrat Jahan Rafi, the activist said that the society had started to rot as we saw that even some females themselves had participated in human chains against Nusrat’s allegation. 
A strict implementation of the laws as well as amendment of the laws where necessary, proper monitoring and neutral functioning of the committees without any political or other influences were a must for preventing sexual harassment, he added. 
University Grants Commission deputy director and member-secretary of the prevention of sexual harassment committee Mauli Azad observed that till now many students were not aware of these committees due to lack of publicity. 
During her visits to the universities she found that when the committees submitted reports in the university syndicates sometimes some syndicates did not accept the report or delayed the process as the accused were very powerful. 
Directorate of Madrasah Education director general Shafiuddin Ahmed said that the managing committees at the institutions operated and monitored these committees. 
‘We don’t have any direct relation with these,’ he said. 
Directorate of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education director (secondary) Md Abdul Mannan said that incidents of sexual harassment mainly took place at the secondary and higher secondary levels. 
Presently they receive very few allegations of sexual harassment which were higher in number during the 80s and 90s, he observed. 
The director said that as he joined the present position in 2017 he was not aware about the number of the committees. 
Condemning violence against women at educational institutions, Education Minister Dipu Moni on April 10 told journalists at her office that establishment of women rights, social movement, raising awareness in society and the rule of law would reduce this crime.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net