Save Romania Union (USR) lawmakers Simona Spataru, Filip Havarneanu and Andrei Miftode lodged on Monday a bill that provides support measures for the victims of sexual abuse in higher education and the obligation of the government and higher education institutions to regulate in their codes of ethics the possibility of anonymous complaints being also filed, the USR said in a release, stating that this legislative initiative comes amid ongoing media investigations into the phenomenon of sexual harassment in universities.
The bill clearly defines the system for reporting and sanctioning abuses in the academic environment and gives victims the possibility to submit anonymous reports, USR said.
The government, the Education Ministry and each individual university will be required to implement the provisions of the law, to allow anonymous complaints, and to protect and proactively support the victims of sexual abuse, the release notes.
„The initiative to ban sexually harassing professors from the academic system is a fair defense mechanism and must be treated in all seriousness and responsibly, so that the educational milieu is no longer synonymous with abuse and violence. Minister Ligia Deca has forgotten that in the spring of this year her ministry outlawed anonymous complaints that protected the emotionally wrecked girls, watering down their courage. Ligia Deca turned a blind eye to their trauma, or maybe it wasn’t even real if the students didn’t sign with their official names. It’s deplorable that the education minister realizes what tools she has on hand only when the media and civil society explode in outcry,” said USR deputy Filip Havaneanu, secretary with the select Education Committee, according to the cited source.
According to the USR, the current legislation „protects such abusive behavior, while female students become victims with life-long traumas.”
The way things are now, the victims are often forced to a face-to-face confrontation with their abuser before university ethics commissions, are exposed to public blame, intimidation or discouragement, or are required to provide extremely sensitive details to the university disciplinary investigation bodies, the USR goes on to note.
The initiators of the bill make a public call on all parties to join this initiative and vote for this legislative proposal, „for safe and morally integer universities for everyone, but especially for girls and women,” adding that the proposed legislative changes are „doubled by the express request of the Declic community and the FILIA Center for clear mechanisms to be laid out to combat sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the University Ethics and Deontology Framework Code and in the ethics codes adopted by each higher education institution.”
Prosecutors with the Public Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Bucharest Sector 1 Court will start this week hearings in the case in which several female students from the Bucharest National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA) accuse sociology professor Alfred Bulai of sexual harassment.
AGERPRES
