ZGC chief executive officer Virginia Muwanigwa said the
commission was seized with the matter after receiving a report from one female
staffer.
“We indeed received the complaint,” Muwanigwa said. “We
made contact with the LSU and they responded to us.
“We are currently engaging the ministry of Higher
Education. The Commission is seized with the issue of sexual harassment in the
world of work.
“We are currently monitoring the legislative processes
aimed at combating sexual harassment, the anti-sexual harassment law, the
gender equality law and the domestication of International Labour Organisation
(ILO) Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment in the Workplace.
“The legislative processes were by and large triggered by
our investigations on sexual harassment in other institutions.”
Last week, some women stormed the university campus
protesting against the alleged abuses.
A top LSU official is accused of routinely abusing a string
of women at the institution who included students and staff.
Sexual harassment is said to be rife at Zimbabwe’s tertiary
institutions with lecturers accused of taking advantage of desperate students.
In most cases female students are reportedly forced to have
sexual relationships with the lecturers in return for favourable marks for
their assignments.
A 2015 baseline study by the Female Students Network Trust,
a non-profit, membership-based organisation working with young women at
tertiary institutions revealed that 97% of female students said they had
experienced sexual harassment.
The survey was conducted at universities, polytechnics and
teachers’ colleges where an overwhelming majority of students said they had
experienced some sort of sexual harassment from lecturers and non-teaching
staff. Standard
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