Delhi University Students Join Hands To Fight Harassment
After ragging and smoking, students in Delhi University want the authorities to take up a campaign against sexual harassment. Students from different DU colleges took out a protest rally in the North Campus on Friday and also submitted a charter of demands at the office of the vice-chancellor.
"We want to make our campus a zero-tolerance zone as far as sexual harassment is concerned. We are not only targeting students and teachers but also the non-teaching staff and even the bantawala on the campus to stop any incident of sexual harassment,'' said Devangana Kalita, a final-year student at Miranda House. She added that the students wanted DU to take up a "highly visible'' campaign against sexual harassment and put up hoardings on the campus on the lines of anti-ragging campaign. On Friday, nearly 300 students armed with banners, slogans and songs started their rally from the Arts Faculty and covered at least ten colleges and departments before reaching the vice-chancellor's office.
It all began earlier this year when a group of Delhi University students and teachers conducted a survey amongst students to gauge the impact of ordnance XVD against sexual harassment in the university. The result wasn't so encouraging which forced the group to turn their initiative into a movement. Devangana said, "We had prepared a questionnaire and gave it to random students during January to March earlier this year. We found that there was hardly any awareness about sexual harassment or the redressal system in the University of Delhi.'' She added, "That's when we thought of taking our efforts further and sent an open invitation to students to join us.''
