{"id":12591,"date":"2020-02-20T15:19:08","date_gmt":"2020-02-20T14:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/?post_type=news&p=12591"},"modified":"2020-02-20T15:19:08","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T14:19:08","slug":"breaking-the-silence-around-sexual-harassment-in-drc","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/news\/breaking-the-silence-around-sexual-harassment-in-drc\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking the silence around sexual harassment in DRC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sexually Transmitted Points – i.e. better grades in return for sex. It\u2019s a dilemma confronting many university students in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but not one that gets talked about much. Or at least it didn’t until Habari RDC decided to break the silence with their 2019 campaign #Univsansharcelement – Universities without harassment. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The Habari RDC team was inspired to create the campaign after one of their monthly \u201cFace aux jeunes\u201d debates in Kinshasa. The theme was: Corruption, monitoring and the sexually transmitted points phenomenon \u2013 What solutions for our universities? The response made clear that the problem was wide-spread but little was being done to tackle it. Habari RDC partnered with Congolese women\u2019s rights organisations SOFEPADI<\/a> and the youth-led Si Jeunesse Savait<\/a> to roll out a nation-wide campaign both online and offline with activities in Kinshasa, Goma, Mbuji – Mayi, Lubumbashi and Beni.<\/p>\n

Raising awareness
\n<\/strong>Given the lack of visibility of sexual harassment within universities and the lack of sanctions against it, the campaign aimed to raise awareness among the various actors (students, professors, university and national authorities). As well as sharing the stories of survivors, objectives included establishing counselling services for students who are targets of harassment, and changes to the law to make these behaviors illegal.<\/p>\n

Lively discussions
\n<\/strong>Online activities included the publication of a series of 21 articles debating issues around harassment and ways to prevent it. The aim was to define the various types of abuse and what makes them possible, through survivor\u2019s testimonies, proposals for solutions and advice for (potential) targets. The articles generated lively discussions with more than 3,200 reactions on Facebook. Visual content was also created with videos and graphics in different formats. This motion design video, Sifa , the harassment survivor, <\/em>generated 20,000 views.<\/p>\n