Blog 6 - Liberian women battle against 'sex for grades' at universities

A fourth year exchange student had only been at the University of Liberia for a couple of days and she was asked by a male student if she was taking the course “Sex 101”. In Liberian Universities and other schools in sub-Saharan Africa are known for passing female students who have sex with their male professors in orders to pass the class. They refer this sex to transactional sex, and about 85% of females in three different schools admitted to being sexually harassed or had sex with their professors for a passing grade. Female students would be whistled at, called names, inappropriately touch and spoken to and blamed for the way they were dressing. The only the thing universities can do is to fire that teacher, meanwhile he finds a new job at a different school and continues on. The exchange student mention earlier, is attempting to set up an organization in that Liberian University that is dedicated to give women a safe place to disclose any situations they may encounter. This organization will also inform males about women’s rights and increase everyone’s awareness about women. Another issue is with the universities and their facilities. Students who take classes that last until darkness are more at risk due to the lack of lighting around campus. The organization is working to involved the government in order to actually get policies in place through the university to eliminate this behavior circulating. Considering how common the lack of women’s rights and the amount of abuse to women in these countries will make it difficult to pass policies that will stop this. The universities involved in these acts have finally admitted that this is a problem and are trying to have stronger regulations. One regulation that was offered was to take the teaching license away from the professors who are fired for transactional sex. Then they would not be able to teach any where else, therefore there would be one less offender in the schools.

Getting messages across to women as well is another important factor in getting this policy to work. The article mentioned that some girls are having transactional sex willingly due to the fact that they may not pass their classes if they don’t. Informing women about their self concept, and other self esteem related issues could be a start to getting them to realize that they are disrespecting themselves. Also, I think encouraging these women to be more comfortable reporting these men and give them a safer environment where they can do so, will make them want to report them. Their conviction rate is still low even though rape has been outlawed in Liberia because women are too intimidated to say anything. There is a ton of work that needs to be done in order to provide more safety to women in places like Liberia and sub-Saharan Africa and convict and punish those who harass them.

Lauren Doss
11:45 am
3/4/2013

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/mar/04/liberian-women-battle-sex-grades-universities