Abstract

Girl children encounter countless forms of sexual harassment as a common part of their everyday lives. In recognition of the obstacles and challenges faced by this population, this study set out to explore the socio-emotional effects of sexual harassment on the future self of the girl child. (a) to examine lack of parental control and it effect on sexual harassment on the future self of the girl child. (b) to find out the impact of environmental pragmatism on the sexual harassment of the girl child’s future self(c) to examine the contribution of indecent dressing on the sexual harassment of the girl child, (d) to find out the impact of acquaintances on the sexual harassment of the girl child’s future self. From these objectives, four research questions were formulated.

The study adopted the survey research design with a sample of 50 form students from three government secondary schools under operation in the Buea municipality to participate in this study through a Purposive and convenient sampling procedure. The study used a questionnaire for data collection. The result of the study revealed that some teachers are responsible for sexual harassment of girl children in their schools, exposing one’s body will lead to sexual harassment from men.

Base on the findings of the study, the following conclusions were drawn that sexual harassment could make them have depression and low self-esteem, and sexual harassment would limit them from becoming good mothers some days.

It was, therefore, recommended that parents should keep an eye on the type of dressing and where their girl child go to or place where they visit. That is girl child should not be out of the house after 6 pm.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Introduction

Sexual harassment is one of the top common forms of gender-based violence regularly encountered by girls in their everyday lives. Despite this reality, many factors have contributed to a widespread reluctance to acknowledge its existence and harmful effects among this population (Berman et al., 2002).

Children who are victims of sexual violence and sexual harassment will likely find the experience stressful and distressing. This will, in all likelihood, adversely affect their educational attainment. Sexual violence and sexual harassment exist on a continuum and may overlap, they can occur online and offline (both physically and verbally) and are never acceptable. It is important that all victims are taken seriously and offered appropriate support. Women affected by sexual harassment are more likely than other women to suffer stress-related mental illness afterward.

One in every three women in the world is exposed to physical and/or sexual violence from a partner or sexual violence from another person (UN Women 2019; WHO 2013). More than 2.6 billion women live in countries where rape within marriage is still not considered a crime (UN Women 2019). High levels of infant and mother mortality, lack of education for girls and women, limited opportunities for financial independence for women, and a number of serious ill health aspects enable and increase the negative consequences of men’s violence against women (WHO 2011; World Economic Forum 2017).

The 1995 Beijing Conference was the first of the United Nations World Conferences on Women to include a specific focus on the girl-child. They prescribe a comprehensive set of measures to ensure the elimination of discrimination against the girl-child. Article 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as “every human being below the age of eighteen years unless, under the law applicable to the child, the majority is attained earlier,” and article 2 clarifies that Convention rights are to be enjoyed by children “without discrimination of any kind,” including on grounds of sex.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women sets out obligations of States parties to ensure the practical realization of the principle of equality of men and women. The treaty bodies monitoring the implementation of these Conventions address the situation of the girl-child in their constructive dialogue with States parties, concluding comments, and general recommendations/comments.

This chapter focuses on the background of the study, conceptual background, theoretical background, contextual background, statement of the problem, research objective, research questions, justification, the scope of the study, the significance of the study, definition of terms.

Historically, modern legal understanding of sexual harassment was first developed in the 1970s, although related concepts have existed in many cultures. One of the first legal formulations of the concept of sexual harassment as consistent with sex discrimination and therefore prohibited behavior under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 appeared in the 1979 seminal book by Catharine MacKinnon entitled “Sexual Harassment of Working Women”. Sexual harassment first became codified in U.S. law as the result of a series of sexual harassment cases in the 1970s and 1980s. Many of the early women pursuing these cases were African Americans, often former civil rights activists who applied principles of civil rights to sex discrimination.

According to the 2014 PEW research statistics on online harassment, 25% of women and 13% of men between the ages of 18 and 24 have experienced sexual harassment while online. In the UK, for example, hundreds of complaints of the sexual abuse of cadets have been recorded since 2012. n Canada, one in ten complaints of sexual assault in military settings are from child cadets or their parents.

Merkin’s (2008) study reporting Latin American rates of sexual harassment in terms of where people are more at risk for experiencing sexual harassment. However, the purpose of that study was a general review of the incident rates of sexual harassment and not the specific effects of power and culture on communication strategies with respect to Latin American sexual harassment.

The inquiry into the incident rates of sexual harassment was confined to reporting descriptive statistics. It was beyond the scope of Merkin’s (2008) study to provide an in-depth explanation of how theory relating to power differentials and cultural values applies to Latin American sexual harassment incident rates.

In the Asia-Pacific region, there is a growing amount of evidence highlighting sexual violence and abuse on the way to and from schools, for example in Papua New Guinea, female students were found to be fearful of sexual assault and violence both in and on their way to school.

This is a key factor affecting the enrolment of girls.  In Fiji, girls are at risk of being sexually blackmailed “in return for transport to school, school fees and other costs associated with their education”.

Schools themselves were found to be unsafe, as qualitative data from Indonesia, Mongolia, and the Philippines indicate, and “government officials may view this as less important than dropout rates or drug addiction”. There are also several small studies from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan that provide “examples of inappropriate sexualized behaviour by teachers towards girls, with several reports of teachers raping schoolgirls in India and serious sexual abuse by teachers in Nepal.

Cases of sexual aggression on girl children in Cameroon are usually underreported. Women and girl children who undergo these unfortunate circumstances usually keep quiet to spare themselves of the shame usually associated with this by the societies they live in. Sometimes, they keep quiet for fear of being accused of provoking the situation. Information collected during the 2004 Cameroon Demographic and Health Survey shows that in 2004 alone, 13.0% of Cameroonian women underwent sex under physical constraints.

Conceptually, Patricia Hughes analyses the development of sexual harassment as a legal concept over the past twenty years.She argues that the transformation of harassing from “normal” conduct to behavior deserving legal sanction is a consequence of feminist influence in the law . Operating within this theoretical framework, professor Hughes chronicles the evaluation of the definition of sexual harassment through both judicial and tribunal pronouncement on sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination and legislative adoption of specific human right and labour code provisions prohibiting harassment.( Canadian Lab. And Emo.L.J.1(1994-1995). The Evolving Conceptual Framework of Sexual harassment.

According to Nambangi (2020) Girls in sub-Saharan Africa, between the ages of five and fifteen are socialized differently from boys. This is seen in the household duties they are given from very young ages. In Cameroon, girl children are brought up with a heavy emphasis on their roles as women. They must learn from their mothers how to be masters at running a household. This means that chores such as cooking, cleaning, washing, and serving the male members of the household are of utmost importance. A well-brought-up girl in Cameroon is one who has been trained by her mother or by other female family representatives to be a proper future wife. Boys, on the other hand, are brought to be just like their fathers.

Contextually, It is worth revealing that the constitution of Cameroon has a clause that addresses the rape of women and youths. The Cameroon penal code states that any person who forces a woman to have sexual intercourse with him will be sentenced to five to ten years in prison (Nambangi,2020). Similar to Cameroon, there exists statute law protecting children from sexual abuse and violence in Malawi. It is rather unfortunate that Malawian girls still suffer abuse many years after the UN MDGs.

Actions that create sexual harassment against girls among others include “rape, forcing a child to touch another individual sexually, exposure to or participation in pornography, and forcing a child to have sex with another person” (Watts and Zimmerman 2002, 1235). Oftentimes such acts occur between a child and an adult otherwise termed statutory rape, but it can also occur between a child and a peer, as we see in the case of Malawi.

During times of conflict increase the risk of sexual abuse for girl child. This is especially true for teenage girls, when fear of abuse in schools that are used as barracks or bases by armed forces or groups, brings them to drop out or to have their families pull them out of school. When sexual violence is used as a weapon of war, the consequences of rape put girls schools at severe risk, and in countries like the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, and Sudan, the fear of the armed conflict and ethnic violence insecurity has prevented millions of girls from attending school (Raday and Shai,2014).

Theoretically, Natural/biological theory informed the main of the main objective of the study. These perspectives posit that sexual harassment is a natural extension of mate selection evolutionary theory. In other words, sexual harassment represents an expression of sexual attraction, a natural element in mate-seeking. According to these researchers, men have a stronger inner drive to be sexually aggressive and to find a mate. Therefore, such sexual behavior is not meant as harassment (Barak et al., 1995). This higher sex drive of men creates a mismatch between the sexual desires of men and women and consequently leads to sexually aggressive behavior at work (Tangri & Hayes, 1997).

The sociocultural theory seeks to informed objective two of the study, this theory is largely feminist in orientation–examine the wider social and political context in which sexual harassment is created and occurs. According to these theories, sexual harassment is a logical consequence of the gender inequality and sexism that already exists in society (Gutek, 1985; Thomas & Kitzinger, 1997). Sexual harassment exists because of the views of women as the inferior sex, but also sexual harassment serves to maintain the already existing gender stratification by emphasizing sex role expectations.

Social-cognitive theory of sexual harassment, Fitzgerald (1993) observed that the majority of men that engage in sexually harassing behavior may not be consciously aware that they are doing so. This hypothesis would fit well with Pryor and Stoller’s (1994) research, since some men’s lack of awareness of the harassing nature of their behavior may be explained by the automaticity and unconscious nature of the power–sex association. In other words, the concepts of power and sex may be so strongly linked for men with a high LSH, that Such a perspective would open up numerous avenues of empirical inquiry which may well help to elucidate the main similarities and differences between sexual harassers and rapists.

Statement Of Problem

Sexual harassment of the girl which is manifested in many forms is still widespread in Cameroon despite many efforts to end it. There is a need for the education of those who perpetuate this sexual harassment especially men on the negative consequences of such acts on the woman, the girl child, and society as a whole.

The laws and the regulations established to fight violence against women in Cameroon are not implemented, there is a real and urgent need to put them into practice. Many NGOs that are involved in this fight are unfortunately operating in the urban areas while there is need to focus their attention on the rural areas where sex harassment against the girl is more prevalent.

The situation of sexual violence against the girl child in Cameroon is so preoccupying that both the government, NGOs, religious bodies, and the traditional authorities need to double their efforts in order to achieve any significant results. There is a need to promote the collection of good quality data, carry out research and promote the application of policies aimed at fighting the various forms of sexual harassment against girl children in Cameroon.

Since the government’s efforts have failed to resolve the problems of sexual harassment like socio-emotional influences. Socio-emotional problems could be lack of parental control, environmental pragmatism, indecent dressing, and acquaintances. It is in line with this that the following questions have surfaced such as; what role has socio-emotional effects of sexual harassment on the future self of the girl child. What measures can be taken to ameliorate this situation? It is against this drawback the study sets to examine the contribution of the socio-emotional effects of sexual harassment on the future self of the girl child.

Objectives of the Study

Main Objective

They main objective of this study was to explore the socio emotional effects of sexual harassment on the future self of the girl child.

Specific Objectives

1. To examine lack of parental control and its effect on sexual harassment on the future self of the girl child.
2. To find out the impact of environmental pragmatism on the sexual harassment of the girl child’s future self.
3. To examine the contribution of indecent dressing on the sexual harassment of the girl child.
4. To find out the impact of acquaintances on the sexual harassment of the girl child’s future self.