Sexual Harassment in Kolkata Schools

Dishani Roy

What are we Teaching in our Schools?
A young boy does homework at his father's cycle repair shop in Kolkata

In the recent years, many educational institutes have been accused of harassment in many forms. As much as I'd want to defy it, it stands out as true and more often than not, as unacceptable. In this inglorious plight, many youngsters have been built or broken, shaped or shattered.  In the name of educational growth and development, schools not only normalize social hazards but also glorify and establish them as norms in the name of education. WASH took a look at some schools in Kolkata to find out that not only did regressive rules exist in them, but there was also rampant sexual harassment in the name of 'discipline'.

The intensely patriarchal training that children receive from childhood at home and at school normalizes practices like touching skirts and shirts without permission by prefects, teachers and others. Students are not given the space to protest or consent. I see this as nothing short of harassment. Children are legally protected by The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. According to this act is, a person who "makes a child exhibit his body or any part of his body so as it is seen by such person or any other person" is committing sexual harassment.
 

In girls' schools, students have reported to have been harassed by fellow students, prefects, teachers, subjecting them to extreme humiliation by even lifting up their skirts to check if all of them wore tights beneath. This has been reported to be done to see if proper brassieres were worn too. These are sad instances when discipline was severely confused with harassment as a result of which young women were endowed with twisted ideas of femininity and womanhood, restricting and inhibiting the paradigms of the same under the vicious umbrella of lady-likeness. An ex-student of Calcutta Girls' High School who wished to remain anonymous said that as a student in class 11 and 12, she remember seeing young girls, most of them still legally children, being forced to lift their skirts on the days they had physical education. "This was done to check whether their underwear was in accordance with their house colors." She said.

In boys' schools, effeminate boys have been sexually harassed. Repetitive questions have been raised concerning their masculinity. Some of them were called 'hijras', which again is not an offensive term but was considered derogatory by popular notions of masculinity. [Thereby demeaning the profession and the struggle of hijras, it should be added]. See how the idea of masculinity is fed into the minds of young boys.

Another ex-student of Auxilium Convent School, who is now pursuing bachelors in Arts, added, "As a former student of the school, I do not feel immensely clued in to current events, but in my time I have seen some problematic uniform checks that have been overlooked in the name of decorum. There is a fine line between being concerned about a notion of propriety in the uniform and appearance, and encroaching upon personal boundaries. Students were asked to lift up their skirts to check if they wore tights for the PT classes. This was to ensure no mishaps happened during physical activity and games.” As we all know, the ‘mishap’ is that of girls’ legs being seen. 
There have been instances where teachers had remarked upon the length where a student had tucked in their shirt, and proceeded to pull out the shirt to indicate how loosely it was being worn. 'It was a little weird, and at the time, I did not think it was so, but in hindsight, it was intrusive', she added. Since when do teachers have the right to touch students’ bodies? Is there no training given with respect to this?

A conversation we had at WASH threw light on more cases of sexual harassment which had taken place in schools. It was once reported in Christ University, Bangalore, but this time I heard it from multiple schools. That is, not even higher secondary, but just high school, where girls and boys generally were clueless about sex and sexuality.

Oeisikee talked about how horrible high school was in Loreto Day School, Bowbazaar saying how ‘the teachers would peep inside our shirts after assembly to make sure that we were wearing the 'right' kind of bra. It was sanctioned by the principal.’ Kousumee said that it had happened to her too. Oeisikee further explained that ‘right’ kind of bra was one with ‘no designs, no halter neck or ‘indecent’ styles’. Kousumee said that teachers in two schools she had been to [Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Salt Lake and Aditya Academy Senior Secondary] had called her mother to make sure that she wore a sports bra over her regular bra. ‘What else? A corset? A harness? A straitjacket?’, asked an indignant Kousumee. Oesikee revealed this disturbing piece of information that in her school there was a male PE teacher who ‘used to raise the dresses of the primary school students to see if they were wearing shorts. He's still employed.’ We at WASH are determined to write to these schools to put an end to this kind of sexual harassment, body shaming and bullying. These schools need to realize how long lasting the effects of their sexism are.

Kousumee, said, ‘Throughout high school, I was always really skinny and yet busty. I have had multiple experiences of being called a ‘slut’ or people assuming I am one because I had big breasts on a small frame…It makes you really self-conscious. I still wear minimizer bras and other restrictive​ clothing to kind of keep eyes away from my chest.’ Ekabali was told that ‘if men groped me my boobs would become bigger and therefore I should protect them on the street.’ Sounds incredible? Kunjila Mascillamani and I both have heard this logic about [thin] women with ‘big’ breasts. Men themselves confirmed that this belief of such women have big breasts as a result of having a lot of sex was quite common in their high school life.

In schools (co-ed or not), concept of sexuality is still a myth. Gender studies, women empowerment and sex education find little space and discussion.

Cases of molestation are prevalent but to my wonder, these go unnoticed and no or very few major steps are taken to conserve safety measures.

It is important to understand how women are constantly shamed on staining their skirts red, how students (irrespective of sex) are exposed to incessant body-shaming, quite ridiculously and unethically, conforming them to absurd restrictions of body image. 

Write to us at washwomenwash@gmail.com if you have similar experiences of sexual harassment at schools, educational institutes and workplaces. We would like to help in ways we can.