Sexual harassment is associated with mental health problems, loss of work productivity, and among students, it results in poor academic achievement. Maseno University (MSU) is an institution of Higher Learning, located in Western Kenya. While the university has existing policies and procedures aimed to deal with gender-based violence (GBV) and workplace harassment, there are barriers that prevent community members of MSU from utilizing the services. For instance, MSU policies and procedures have limited transparency, accountability, and awareness, and understanding of them is low among students, staff/faculty. There are few training programs on campus to learn to recognize, prevent and respond to harassment and victims lack knowledge about support services and how to seek legal protections. Moreover, there has been no research to access the prevalence, nature, and impact of sexual harassment at MSU, findings from which are essential for tailoring policies/programs to address the most common types of misconduct and protect the most at-risk groups.

The main purpose of this project is to ensure Maseno University’s policies, procedures and practices create an environment that supports a workplace that is free from any form of physical and sexual violence, allowing faculty, staff, and students at Maseno University the chance to thrive. It seeks to do this by building the capacity of Maseno University to develop awareness, training, procedures, and policies responding to and preventing workplace harassment. The goals of this project are: To use a resource audit methodology to examine gather input from MSU stakeholders; To assess the types and extent of sexual misconduct and harassment; To refine MSU policies and procedures to ensure they address sexual harassment complaints while protecting the complainant, and develop a repository for workplace harassment case reporting and response; To develop materials to raise awareness about and build capacity to handle and respond to workplace harassment, and inform the research community of recourse, resources and policies.

Through the dissemination of our findings to academic papers and presentations/workshops, we hope to trigger dialogue with stakeholders at different levels for adoption. We also aim to build the body of knowledge on preferences and patterns of service uptake to create shifts in programming and response. Overall, this project will build sustainable approaches to ensuring sexual harassment-free environment on MSU, while simultaneously creating a consciousness surrounding these issues among faculty, staff, and students.

TO DATE

The study has been able to get ethical approval for the study in Kenya; from MSU and The National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI) and the United States University of California Los Angeles as well as University of California San Francisco. The pilot study has been conducted and reviews from participants are being collected. Moreover, awareness of the project is being done through the use of posters around the university as well as through the social media platforms of the university in readiness for the recruitment of participants for the main study.

Author: Rhoda Loreen Musungu