Makerere University has fired at least 6 of its staff over their involvement in sexual harassment scandals. The 6 cases include one non-teaching staff member and five other teaching staff members. They were involved in scandals recorded between 2018 and 2022.
The director of Gender Mainstreaming Directorate at Makerere, Dr Euzobia Mugisha said a total of 30 cases have been recorded since 2018. She revealed that 6 of these have been dismissed, one got acquitted, five cases investigated to a conclusion.
The cases investigated to conclusion involved 3 staff and 2 students. However, though, the balance of the 30 cases are still under investigation at the university.
According to Dr. Mugisha, the most reported cases are of lecturer-to student and these are mostly attributed to mismanagement of students’ marks. In previous years, the issue of students missing marks has been prevalent.
The university describes sexual harassment as an unwelcome behavior. It can be in form of sexual advances, requests for sexual favours or unwanted physical.
Sometimes it can also be verbal, or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature. A student survey revealed that the vice is driven by frequent physical meetings between students and lecturers.
Despite the dress code policy passed in 2008 by the student’s guild banning short dresses and skirts for ladies, Dr Mugisha highlighted that sexual harassment has nothing to do with one’s dress code.
“If you reduce the problem of sexual harassment to dress code, it means that you are reducing a problem in just appearance. This is yet when you are wearing a hijab, it does not mean that you are immune to sexual harassment,” she said.
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