Executive Summary/Status Update on the Campus Project Implemented by Gender Mobile Initiative
Sexual harassment has become a recurring phenomenon in environments of learning particularly in tertiary institutions across Nigeria. A study on Community Health Education by Owoaje E.T and Olusola Taiwo using self-administered questionnaires revealed that 69.8% of the respondents had been sexually harassed as students in tertiary institutions with the main perpetrators being male classmates and lecturers. The spate of these patterns of violence has partly been attributed to poor individual and institutional response, lack of clear policies, poor implementation and lack of reporting channels.
These findings coupled with personal angle stories from some of our programs in four Nigerian institutions (Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, Ede Polytechnic, Tai Solarin University, Lagos State University) represent this as a real problem requiring a comprehensive approach which implies methods and strategies that complement and reinforce one another.
In response to this, the Campus Initiative revolves around developing a model policy template and guidelines for institutions to develop their policies to reflect their local reality with a substantial compliance with the guideline. This also extends to the development of a Mobile application for confidential reporting, case tracking, perpetrator matching/Information escrow, policy education, and data generation in all Institutions.
Deliverables
Provide technical support to institutions through their policy validation process
Provide a mini grant to support logistical demands during the process
Print up to 100 copies of the policy to be distributed across faculty libraries
Build the capacity of 30 Campus Ambassadors in each Institution.
Support Institutions to set up an independent Sexual Harassment Prohibition Committee.
Handover the Mobile Application Platform to each Institution.
Project reach
101
Interested Institutions
47
Managements Meetings Held
12
Institutions with signed MOU
12
Institutions with policy template
17
Institutions with Scheduled Management Meetings
10
Institutions that have received the mini grant
Learning points
External effort to address sexual harassment should be participatory to enable institutions take ownership of the process.
When Institutions own such processes, they will create an enabling environment for such policy framework to thrive.
Adopting the bottom-top approach has proven more effective in mobilizing interest of key stakeholders.
Institutions are more interested in efforts that will strengthen their institutional capacity to be more responsive.