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E-news Issue 202

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One in four university students subject to sexual harassment, according to EOC’s study

Despite ongoing preventive efforts among local universities, incidents of sexual harassment still make news every now and again, from professors making unwanted advances on students to freshmen being pressured into playing sexually charged games at orientation camps. For any solution to be effective, we need to first grasp the full picture of sexual harassment of university students in Hong Kong. The EOC thus conducted a territory-wide study in 2018, the findings of which were released on 21 January 2019.

The largest of its kind in Hong Kong, the study consisted of an online survey of 14,442 full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students from nine universities, in-depth interviews with 28 students who had reported experience of sexual harassment, and a focus group discussion with university representatives.

It was found that almost one-fourth (23%) of university students were sexually harassed on-campus, off-campus and/or online within the 12 months before they took the survey, and yet a mere 2.5% lodged a complaint with the university. In fact, more than half (58.6%) were unaware of the existing anti-sexual harassment policy at their universities. Their knowledge of what constitutes sexual harassment also proved lacking, with nearly one-fourth (25.0%) failing to identify four scenarios of sexual harassment or above, out of the eight examples listed.

“The prevalance of sexual harassment at local universities is real and highly alarming. There are multiple factors as revealed in the study, including a tendency to trivialise certain harassing acts, a misunderstanding of consent, gender stereotypes, a victim-blaming culture, the silence of bystanders, and the abuse of power by people in positions of authority,” said Prof Alfred CHAN Cheung-ming, Chairperson of the EOC. “We have put forward a total of 17 recommendations along four directions, namely: university’s commitment and governance; a victim-centric reporting mechanism in responding to sexual harassment; awareness training for attitude changing; and comprehensive sexuality education. We are approaching the nine participating universities to line up meetings with the Presidents and/or university representatives, so that we may discuss how these measures can be implemented. We do hope all educational institutions will share the EOC’s commitment to addressing the problem at its roots and creating a safe and nurturing environment for all students, free from fear and harassment.”

The study has captured immediate media attention since its release. Dr Ferrick CHU, acting Chief Operations Officer of the EOC, has given various interviews to further explain the significance of the findings. “Bystander apathy and the trend of underreporting among university students are deeply concerning,” said Dr Chu. “They are, after all, the builders of our future. What happens on a campus today may well repeat itself in a workplace years after. Nurturing a sense of gender justice among the younger generation, therefore, is just as much a priority as strengthening universities’ complaint-handling mechanisms.”

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