GHANA: First university sexual harassment policy

Last month the University of Ghana launched its first sexual harassment policy - which was also the first for a public university in the country. The policy was approved by the university council last October and is effective from 1 January this year.

The document was developed over three years by the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy, CEGENSA, which was established in 2005 and is headed by Professor Dzodzi Tsikata.

Opening a colloquium on 17 March that launched the policy, Tsikata said it played an important role in fulfilling CEGENSA's mandate and making the university a conducive place of work for both men and women.

"It will take hard work to implement the policy," she said. "It will take time to institute confidence in the process, faith in the system. There is a reluctance to come forward, rather than a problem of frivolous cases".

In the policy document, sexual harassment is defined as "unwelcomed sexual advances, or unwelcome requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical conduct or behaviour of a sexual nature".

Illustrations of this definition can be persistent propositions for dates, sexual jokes, passing on pornographic material, comments about someone's body etc. The policy is applicable to all members of the university community.

For sexual harassment cases there are two possible routes. One is an informal approach to dealing with a case, where resolution takes place between the complainant and the alleged harasser. But serious harassment has to be reported formally to a committee that will investigate the claim.

Dr Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atuah from the law department started his presentation with a cartoon of ostriches hiding their heads in the sand, suggesting that sexual harassment issues had been previously ignored.

He referred to earlier research and to the legal framework for the policy, and suggested: "The general consensus is that sexual harassment on campus should be seriously addressed because it negatively affects student well-being and university reputation."

The debate on sexual harassment on African campuses was heightened in 2009 when Louise Morley and Kattie Lussier of the UK's University of Sussex presented their report "Sex, Grades and Power: Gender violence in African higher education", with data from Ghana and Tanzania.

Ghanaian researcher Ellen Bortei-Doku has also published work, in which she suggests that sexual harassment is deeply embedded in gender politics in Ghana.

National laws in Ghana that support the university's new policy are the Domestic Violence Act of 2007, which also defines harassment, the National Labour Act of 2003, and the Whistleblower Act of 2006.

Fidelia Ohemeng from the department of sociology presented local research underpinning the project, undertaken in collaboration with Dr Akosua Darkwah and Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo with support from Ark foundation and the DV coalition.

Their study, based on a survey distributed to 445 students at the University of Ghana, illustrated attitudes towards sexual harassment and its prevalence.

To the question: "Does a female really mean it when she says no to sexual advances?" only 18% of male respondents said yes, compared to 42% of females.

Nearly half of harassment occurred in first year of study and perpetrators were mostly male colleagues or students, male friends or male faculty members. Harassment was most common on streets on campus (33%) and in the victim's room (31%), but also happened in lecture halls (13%) and offices on campus (9%).

Importantly, most cases went unreported and only 1.4% of sexual harassment incidents were reported to the dean of students.

Finally, pro-vice chancellor of the University of Ghana Professor Kwesi Yankah, who according to Tsikata has been a driving force behind the project as a chair of CEGENSA, closed the programme and said:

"It is remarkable that many of our policies, such as the student handbook, are not properly implemented and we can only rely on members of the community with institutional memory. Often if there is no such person we end up groping in the darkness, reinventing the wheel, sometimes we ignore the wheel altogether."

Outlining the policy crafting process, Yankah said a seminar had been organised two years ago for students. It had been very well attended, and the president of the student representative council had given a "lively" presentation on student attitudes and thinking on the topic. "Their perspective is completely different from what we can imagine."

Junior and senior staff had been invited into the process last year, and had also responded well. Yankah raised the issue of poor attendance of senior staff at the colloquium and stressed that the ongoing process of reducing class sizes and enforcing faculty office hours at the university would lead to more interaction between students and lecturers.

Although this was highly desirable, Yankah suggested there was a need to be sensitive to challenges that might arise and the sexual harassment policy was part of that work.

Apart from the policy, CEGENSA has also collaborated with the University of Ghana counseling and placement center to set up a call center and undertake outreach. The policy implementation committee will work on making the policy known to the university community.

CEGENSA Tsikata emphasised: "We are not a church or a mosque. We are not concerned with consensual sex, but with such interactions that demean and do not lead to a conducive work environment. We are engaged with changing cultures, but that is difficult as it implies changing the way we think."

CEGENSA also has a gender policy in the pipeline.