Students Defender

Sexual Violence at college campuses is extremely widespread in Pakistan. There is a significant imbalance of power in colleges, the teachers and administrative staff can adversely affect the student’s future by lowering their grades and taking away extra-curricular opportunities from them. This makes students particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment. Sexual violence that is perpetrated by students against other students is also prevalent.

Female harassment is a disease spreading in our society. Whenever we hear the word “harassment” we think of a street bully or gangster but to our surprise, the cancer is spreading through one of the sacred places of society, the educational institutions. Female harassment in Pakistan is becoming more common in universities, as thousands of harassment cases have been reported in universities. Teachers in the universities have unlimited authority and use their powers to exploit students, especially female ones.

Generally, the university harassment committee members are also involved in harassing students, so normally the female students hesitate while approaching the university harassment committee as they usually protect their colleagues.

Harassment, is defined in The Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act 2010 as, any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favors or other verbal or written communication or physical conduct of a sexual nature or sexually demeaning attitudes, causing interference with work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment, or the attempt to punish the complainant for refusal to comply to such a request or is made a condition for employment.