Speak up Delhi: ICC doing little to address sexual harassment cases in colleges

The Delhi University (DU) campus rocked with protests throughout the week following the two cases of harassment against female students by male faculty members being reported from its colleges within a span of five days. The agitating students were demanding “proper constitution” of college’s Internal Complaints Committees (ICCs) to deal with sexual harassment cases 

First, a first-year student from Daulat Ram College alleged sexual harassment by a professor and filed a police complaint against him. In her complaint she alleged that the professor would try to touch her inappropriately whenever he found her alone and would follow her and used to call her to meet him alone. Afterwards, the Delhi police arrested the professor and registered a case against him. 

Second, a student of Bharti College wrote to the Vice-Chancellor (V-C) of the University, Yogesh Tyagi, alleging sexual harassment by a male teacher. In her complaint, she alleged that the professor used to send her lewd messages and would make obscene calls to her until she confronted him and recorded the incident. The student had also submitted a video clip, shot in September 2017, in which she’s seen slapping the professor for harassing her and five more girl students, to the V-C.

However, in both the cases, none of the student had approached to the college’s ICCs. Reason, about 70% DU Colleges have ICCs but they are mostly on paper and students even in those institutions do not have any clue about the mandatory autonomous bodies, a DNA reality-check has revealed. 

As per University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines on sexual harassment, it’s mandatory for colleges to have properly constituted ICCs, each with a presiding officer (woman), two faculty members, two non-teaching staff, a representative from an NGO and three elected student representatives. The guidelines also say students should be made aware of ICCs. When all other members are being nominated by principals, only the posts of students representatives are elected. 

COLLEGES THAT CONDUCT ELECTION FOR ICC

• Only a few DU colleges, including Miranda House, Hindu College and Ramjas College, have conducted elections for the posts of students’ representatives. Whereas, all other colleges have ad-hoc students on ICCs. 

VOICES

Both the incidents clearly display irresponsibility of college administration who failed to implement the UGC and DU guidelines of forming a ICC (internal college complaint committee).  After the video went viral in a hustle bustle they notified for student representative election. Such cases of sexual and mental harassment also exposes the state of women security in the University.
— Akshay Lakra, NSUI president, Delhi

Earlier a woman student in Daulat Ram College was harassed by a professor and now a third year student in Bharti College has written to V-C asking him to look into the case of harassment at the hands of a professor. This is a complete failure of the existing mechanisms in the University. We have been consistently demanding fair and accessible Gender Sensitization Committee Against Sexual Harassment in universities.
— Kawalpreet Kaur, president AISA, DU

Women students are no longer ready to remain silent on the violence and harassment that marks their experiences of higher education. This struggle will not stay limited to individual colleges, the university administration has to answer and be accountable for why legally mandated institutional mechanisms of redressal against sexual violence and for gender sensitisation are completely either non-existent or non-functional in all colleges and departments.
— Devangana Kalita, member Pinjra Tod

Females are speaking up and taking a stand against harassment because they know that they no longer need to suffer in silence and there are laws in place to protect them. However, still a lot has to be done to make them feel more comfortable to take such initiatives.
— Manan Arora, Student, IP University

EXPERT SPEAK

The Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) in education institutes are basically farce and that’s why students don’t trust them. Also, there is no victim protection when cases go to such committee. The Vice Chancellor should intervene and check the functioning of these committees.
— Ranjana Kumari, director of the NGO Center for Social Research

There has to be election for ICC student representative in all education institutions.  Having members of other student bodies in ICC is a mockery of whole system. The students can even approach to the UGC in case of any such violation. 
— Vinita Chandra, a professor at Ramjas College, who is active on women rights issue at the campus.