Evaluating the Effectiveness of UGC's Policy to Prevent Sexual Harassment: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Incidents of sexual harassment in universities is a growing global concern. In order to make educational campuses a safe space for students, universities have developed and implemented various Anti-Sexual Harassment (ASH) programmes. However, it is imperative to validate the appropriateness of such policies to identify gaps and better develop the ASH programmes and the redressal mechanism employed by universities. This paper aims to evaluate the efficacy of the policies on prevention of sexual harassment formulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in India, which is implemented in approximately 967 higher educational institutions across the country. Two policies: the University Grants Commission (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal of sexual harassment of women employees and students in higher educational institutions) Regulation 2015 and the Saksham Report (Measures for ensuring the safety of Women and Programmes for Gender Sensitisation on Campuses) 2013 are systematically reviewed using the Sadler effectiveness triangle that breaks down the policy to its Procedural, Transcriptive and Substantive Value in order to evaluate the policy principles, the policy measures and the implementation of these measures. Key findings of the analysis were: Absence of consent education in gender sensitisationprogrammes, lack of survivor-centered and trauma sensitive approaches, gaps in the appointment and qualification of members of the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) which is responsible for sexual harassment redressalin universities and a lack of representation of sexualityminorities in both the gender programmes and ICC.