A safety audit carried out by the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) across colleges affiliated to the Delhi University stated that one in every four women studying in the university has faced sexual harassment.
“One in four students reported sexual harassment. Of 188 cases of harassment faced by the respondents, 40 were cases of physical harassment. One in five cases of harassment were of touching or groping. Lewd gestures, staring and vulgar comments make up for the most rampant kind of harassment,” read the report.
Cyber harassment
Highlighting cyber harassment, the field survey, carried across 24 colleges with 736 female respondents, read, “One in five cases of harassment concerned trolling on social media or harassment through calls or text or WhatsApp messages.”
Approximately 80% of the respondents had attributed “unresponsiveness of the university or college administration as a key factor for unsafe campuses”, the safety audit further said.
The report also said that 22 out of 50 departments and colleges flouted the guidelines of the University Grants Commission (UGC) pertaining to the constitution of the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) by democratically electing student representatives.
“Not even half of the surveyed students were even aware of the Internal Complaints Committee in their colleges. 70% of the student respondents stated that the names and contact details of the ICC members are not prominently displayed in their colleges,” the report added.
Upcoming march
Ruchi Gupta, national incharge of the NSUI, said, “Such audits will be conducted in other prominent universities across the country in the coming days. On May 1, there will be a march in DU North Campus demanding steps for the safety of women on campus.”
The report has also made various recommendations including the scrapping of ICC in cases where it has been constituted without democratic elections, awareness programmes regarding the committee, installation of CCTV cameras, street lighting in sensitive areas and crackdown of public drinking.
