An uproar at the Peninsula Technikon following the administration’s failure last year to discipline a student for sexual harassment has once again highlighted this hidden problem, reports
Rehana Rossouw
SEVERAL months after a student at the Peninsula Technikon in Cape Town reported she had been lewdly fondled by SRC president Solly Lamini, there has been no disciplinary hearing into her complaint.
The student asked the administration to adjudicate her complaint, but too few members of the disciplinary committee arrived for the hearing. Female students on campus are outraged, saying this illustrates the administration’s lax attitude to the problem of sexual harassment.
“The complainant was unable to write her final exams because she was so traumatised. She, like many of us on campus, believe that it is because Lamini’s mother is a senator that he got away with it,” said a student, who asked not to be named.
“Last year, another SRC member was found guilty of sexual harassment, but got off scot free and is still serving on the SRC. The culture at Pentech has changed over the years, especially in the hostels, where most students are now black and believe their culture allows them to grope women any time they choose to.”
Despite numerous attempts to get comment from Lamini, he did not respond.
The technikon’s special assistant to the rector, Lionel Harper, denied that Lamini was accorded special treatment because his mother is a senator. The failure to reach a quorum at the disciplinary hearing was an “administrative bungle” as a clerk had failed to give proper notice of the meeting.
“We definitely have a policy on sexual harassment and find it completely unacceptable. This matter will be dealt with at the first opportunity,” Harper said.
He said although Pentech’s policy allowed for expulsion if a student was found guilty of sexual harassment and no mitigating factors were found, the other SRC member found guilty last year had appealed against the finding. The administration had accepted as mitigating factors the facts that he was a friend of the complainant and they served on the same
Frank Molteno, of the University of Cape Town’s Sexual Harassment Prevention and Support Service, disputed the belief that sexual harassment had increased at tertiary institutions following the changes in the student profile. “The problem existed at UCT, a historically white university, for years before our intake of black students increased. All that has changed is the way we respond to it,” Molteno said.
He said some black students have contested the policy, arguing that it reflected European imperialist culture imposed on African
The myth that sexual harassment was allowed in African culture was easily shattered, Molteno said. He had heard of a male student called before a residence warden after it had been claimed he was guilty of harassment. The student said this concept was foreign to his culture. However, when the warden challenged him to call his parents and share his viewpoints with them, the student literally wet his pants. “We hotly contest the notion that any culture is static or that harassment is accepted in any culture,” he said.
While no systematic research has been conducted across campuses to gauge the extent of the problem, particularly the extent of under-reportage, UCT’s policy was based on the belief that a problem existed on campus.
Through the Sexual Harassment Service, awareness had been increased and counsellors trained to assist students and mediate for them if they chose not to follow the disciplinary route for recourse.
Molteno said the students’ youth, distance from home and raging hormones were not an adequate justification for their actions. “The ethos in society at large permits them to behave that way. The traditions in the residences in particular contribute. It is believed that at a certain point in the academic year any male student worth his salt is expected to have a woman stay overnight with him. Those kinds of conscious pressures create the opportunity and likelihood that a woman will be harassed.”
Dr Jane Bennett, of the African Gender Institute, recently hosted a conference on sexual harassment at tertiary institutions, which was attended by participants from 22 universities and technikons in Southern
She said in the past few years, many tertiary institutions had begun developing policies around discriminatory behaviour. These included historically white and black
“Through organising the conference we have found enormous numbers of people working in places like student affairs, residence administration and academics dedicating substantial amounts of time to combating sexual harassment. These people are often not highly politicised but they have become forced to confront sexual violence almost daily,” Bennett said.
The conference established a network of organisations and individuals tackling sexual harassment on campuses in Southern Africa. They will assist each other in undertaking research, sharing training and education tools, linking with student structures opposed to sexual harassment, and developing policies to counter harassment.