JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Sexual harassment in tertiary institutions remains a huge problem leading to severe emotional, academic, and career difficulty as well as undue suffering. Institutions have responded in various ways to alleviate the burden of sexual harassment with little success, especially in Nigeria. Prevalence is high but reportage is low due to the culture of silence around sexual harassment in educational institutions. This project aims to identify factors associated with SH in tertiary institutions in Nigeria, the institutional mechanisms to prevent and respond to SH, the lived experience of survivors of SH; and gender differences in these experiences.

Objective:

Our objective is to present a study protocol to identify factors associated with the experience of SH in tertiary institutions in Nigeria, the institutional mechanisms to prevent and respond to SH, the lived experience of survivors of SH, how the experiences of SH survivors differ between men and women in heterosexual and same-sex relationships, and how socio-cultural contexts and perceptions about dressing, including institutional practices, may influence the experience and responses of survivors to SH perpetuated in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

Methods:

A mixed (quantitative and qualitative) methods approach is used consisting of a policy review of existing antisexual harassment policies in the selected universities, a quantitative survey to determine the correlates of SH, Focused Group Discussions (FGDs) to explore the perspectives of the university community concerning SH, In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) to explore the lived experiences of survivors of SH, and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) to understand the perspectives of people who provide interventions to survivors.

Results:

This study was funded in July 2022 by the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA), and the collection of data started in November 2022.

Conclusions:

This is the first study that has a component investigating same-sex sexual harassment in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. It is also one of the first to explore the lived experience of survivors of sexual harassment in Nigerian universities. It is hoped that the findings from the present study will improve understanding of factors that drive SH among staff and students in tertiary education institutions in Nigeria and the risk vulnerable populations face.