“Do you know who to call for help?”: Two sociologists conduct study on sexual harassment

A number of murders and murderous attempts has taken place in the country within a short span of time. In wake of the recent crimes that fatally victimized girls and young women in Bangladesh, sociologists Habibul Haque Khondker and Juwel Rana took matter into their own hands in hopes of finding unanswered questions through survey and research.

Risha, a 14-year old eighth grader, was attacked in broad daylight in the country’s capital in late August 2016, which eventually brought her demise. Risha was only the tip of the iceberg in the long list of incidents that took place. Prompted by the horrific event, the sociologists aimed to speculate the different ways such tragedies could be prevented in the future. With several questions in mind, they decided to conduct an online study on sexual harassment.

300 questionnaires were sent out to young women selected purposely from acquaintances online, with the promise of full anonymity. The samples were not representative of the general young population in Bangladesh, but represented a segment broadly of middle class, educated women. With these limitations, the researchers analysed 200 or so responses that they received – some with detailed narratives of the sexual harassment experiences. The majority (95%) of the respondents were university students, with an average age of 23 years. While 88 percent of the respondents claimed to have experienced sexual harassment in one form or another, 17.5% were physically harassed, and 36% subjected to bullying. Close to 45% of the harassment incidents took place in public places, with another 5% through “eve teasing”, 9% through phone, and 9% online.

Upon further exploration, it was found that “a conspiracy of silence produced by a culture where young women do not openly discuss such issues in order to save face” result from a deeply rooted, innate gender inequality. 85% of the respondents had claimed to confide their experiences in friends, 25% with their parents, and 15% of the with nobody else.
The reasons to why they did not report their experiences to the police or to other family members range from embarrassment in talking about the issue to being afraid of being judged by others. When the harasser is a family member or someone known, the victim often do not think of making complaints to avoid “shame.” The percentage for this category is 10% at home, and 14% in educational institutions.

The issue of victimhood is highlighted in the research findings. A national survey for the BALIKA project of Population Council in 2013 conducted by Sajeda Amin et al reported that 35% women agreed that “if a woman is raped, it is her fault,” while 49.6% agreed that “a woman deserves to be beaten in some instances.”

Such norms must change, the duo averred.

The sociologists heavily emphasized also on the importance of a wider public discussion of what is appropriate and what is not in order to ensure gender justice, alongside launching mixed gender law enforcement units, telephone hotline and online portal for reporting incidents of harassment and violence, encouraging girls to practice their fundamental rights as human beings and provide proper punishment to perpetrators, regardless of who they might be.

One respondent said: “I solved an incident of harassment in a bus by slapping the culprit.”
Source: Dhaka Tribune