It was on Sunday night, when the Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH), held a special open counselling session in the wake of the recent horror where a >male student allegedly attacked his female classmate with an axe ostensibly for unrequited love, that another girl student narrated her tale of sexual harassment to the panel.
Sometime into the counselling session, the girl stood up and narrated her personal story in front of the entire audience, following which GSCASH formally registered her complaint before going to the police on Monday.
“There are several ways to approach the GSCASH; the affected student can simply call us on any of our numbers but a form will have to be filled out to register a formal complaint,” said Abhiruchi Ranjan, student representative of the GSCASH, which is a body made up of teachers and students.
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“We really applaud the girl who had the courage to stand up and narrate her experience in public,” she added.
The counselling session mostly focussed on how to deal with relationships, how to handle a break up and how to deal with unwanted attention, among other issues that touched the sensitive relationships that men and women share in an environment where they are forced to be together.
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“The GSCASH is a semi-judicial body, we usually receive complaints of sexual harassment and then we make a report and submit it to the university. We do not offer counselling services,” said Ms. Ranjan, adding that the committee had decided to hold an orientation session sometime during the month so that all students could be made aware of how and when to approach them.
“We have poster campaigns and our numbers are usually displayed everywhere, we even have a website where we have given details on how to approach us confidentially.”