Sexual Harassment Experiences of Undergraduate Students of Kathmandu: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Despite the extensiveness of sexual harassment in Nepal, the studies addressing the subjective experiences of the victims are relatively less. This paper reports the qualitative data from a study of sexual harassment of 100 undergraduate students (80 female) from ages 18 to 24 (M=19.5, SD=1.40)of different colleges of Kathmandu collected through convenience sampling. Data was collected through the use of semi structured interview schedule. Thematic analysis was employed to generate the themes from the responses rendered by participants to the open-ended questions. Three overarching themes emerged from the analysis: experience of the incident, effects of harassment on mental health and education, and dealing with the consequence of harassment. Three sub-themes were subsumed within the first theme, namely: i) characteristics of harassment, ii) perception of harassment and immediate reactions, and iii) contextual factors surrounding harassment. In addition, the second theme revealed the consequences of sexual harassment on the psychological well-being and academic performance of the students. Finally, participants reported employing several coping mechanisms to deal with the consequences of sexual harassment, which are broadly categorized into interpersonal and intrapersonal coping strategies and subsumed within the third theme. These findings are discussed in the light of the existing relevant literature, and their practical implications are discussed in the paper.

Sexual Harassment and its Effects in Nepalese Society - A Systematic Review

“…Results and Conclusion (Bhatta et al, 2021) This study examines the experiences of victims of SH, its impact on health and education, and remedies for its consequences. It covers themes such as characteristics, perception, immediate reaction, and contextual factors.…”

“…Geographically the systematic paper review were included in various study areas, i.e. seven from Kathmandu (Bhatta et al, 2021, Gautam et al,2019, Khanal & Paudel, 2022, Paudel, 2022, Pandey et al, 2022, Sharma et al, 2022and Thapalia et al, 2019 valley, two from Lalitpur and Rupendehi (Gyawali, 2020 andGyawali, 2021), and each one from Nawalparasi, (Gyawali & Maharjan, 2022), Lalitpur (Dawadi et al, 2022, and Bharatpur (Wagle et al, 2022) respectively.…”

“…The systematic review analyzed studies on female, girl, and women's experiences, knowledge, and perceptions of SH in various fields and common places. Seven papers focused on SH in traveling, school premises, and common places (Bhatta et al, 2021;Gautam et al, 2019;Gyawali, 2020;Pandey et al, 2022;Sharma et al, 2022;Thapalia et al, 2019;Wagle et al, 2022). Two studies were in the context of mental health issues (Gyawali, 2021) and (Gyawali & Maharjan, 2022).…”

“…One of the studies used random sampling as lottery method for collecting data. Besides, there was gender biased in the previous studies because the majority of the previous studies were targeted female/girl"s participant except two of the previous studies involved male participants (Bhatta et al, 2021 andDawadi et al, 2022).…”