Manifestation of harassment in student-teacher relationship

Abstract

Current examination of harassment is designed to understand the situation of different types of harassment, perceptions, students’ experiences, reasons, and aftermaths on university level. Besides this, it was also intended to analyze the awareness level of students regarding sexual harassment protection bills and policies by comparing their own coping strategies to fight sexual harassment from their professors in the premises of university. Furthermore, factors those are involved in worsening the situation of harassment are also studied. For this study, qualitative research methods and techniques are also used as per the requirement of this study. As sexual harassment is such a controversial and debatable phenomenon so qualitative methods suit perfectly. Thirty female students from different department of Iqra university are also interviewed using interview guide covering all aspects of the study. Two FGD were also conducted as at some points of study, it was a herculean task for the researcher to get data from respondents because students feel reluctant while sharing their personal experiences. Group discussions give them confidence to be more descriptive. This study provided a holistic picture of reality vs myths about sexual harassment. According to the study, there are multiple school of thoughts that defines sexual harassment differently and even there are such students who do not have enough knowledge even on the university level. There are many grey areas where we need to pay our attention specially in educating students to protect themselves. Giving education and training is not utterly satisfying, there is a need to develop such strategies to give harassers a lesson so that they do not get courage to harass innocent souls against their will.