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‘Human rights centres’ mooted for State universities as ragging issue comes up again
View(s):- Study shows 51 percent of students surveyed were subjected to verbal harassment; 34.3 percent to psychological violence; 23.8 percent to physical abuse; and 16.6 percent to sexual harassment through ragging
- Educational Institutions Act of 1998 which prohibits ragging and other forms of violence hasn’t been implemented, says parliamentarian Dr. Harini Amarasuriya
By Yoshitha Perera
The Government will establish “human rights centres” in all State universities to inquire into and investigate ragging and other forms of harassment prevalent for years in these institutions, Higher Education State Minister Suren Raghavan said.
With several severe ragging incidents coming to light recently, the need to put an end to the practice is again under discussion. The question remains whether existing laws are enough. The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) has recommended that prevailing legislation be applied.
“However, most university students, particularly freshers, are afraid to come forward and make the accusation that they were harassed,” said Dr. Raghavan. “We urge these students not to panic and to present their grievances.”
Students should not hesitate to file complaints. The Government is willing to help them continue their education by transferring them to another university while offering other forms of assistance, he said.
Research earlier this year by the Centre for Gender Equity and Equality of the University Grants Commission (UGC) in collaboration with UNICEF on the ragging and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in State universities reveals their extent and consequences. It was conducted in both old and new universities, as well as those in former conflict-affected areas.
It revealed that over 51 percent of the students surveyed were subjected to verbal harassment; 34.3 percent to psychological violence; 23.8 percent to physical abuse; and 16.6 percent to sexual harassment through ragging.
Academic and non-academic staff, too, reported SGBV, although nearly all incidents were reported from a single university.
The report reveals that 44 percent of university staff had experienced verbal sexual violence; 22.3 percent had solicited sexual bribes; and 19.9 percent had experienced physical sexual violence.
Twenty-one percent of students at public universities reported being subjected to verbal sexual violence while 1.5 percent wereforced into sex. While it’s thought that ragging occurs only in the first year, it was also found that the harassment doesn’t end after induction.
The Educational Institutions Act of 1998 which prohibits ragging and other forms of violence hasn’t been implemented. There are mechanisms within universities, too, that must be put in place, National Peoples’ Power (NPP) MP Dr. Harini Amarasuriya said.
“It’s up to the authorities, Vice Chancellors and administrators to implement the existing law but also go beyond it to look at the causes of ragging in a more holistic manner, setting up systems internally to deal with these issues,” she asserted.
The UGC has set up a “centre for gender equity and equality” which was also tasked with looking at ragging but it didn’t receive the support it required, she said. Crucially, it did not have a mechanism to report or investigate ragging and “it fell apart after a while”.
“The authorities must take this seriously and deal with it,” Dr. Amarasuriya emphasised. She maintained that a deeper look at the issue of ragging would show it exists also in other institutions, not just universities. And she emphasised that, while some mistakenly identified ragging as an initiation into university subculture, the latter represents “unity and togetherness, erasing differences and distance and making you one community”.
“A school or university batch supports a person to move on in life,” she pointed out. “Much later, most of us rely on those networks to get things done since we are pretty much based on personal relationships and because the (usual) systems don’t really work in our society.”
Togetherness and a sense of community cannot be sustained through inflicting violence or by claiming that ragging was a “university subculture”, Dr. Amarasuriya concluded.
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