Sexual harassment: perception and experience among female college students of Kafrelsheikh University

Increasing concerns are rising over women and adolescence in Arabic societies generally, and in Egyptian society specifically.

To identify the profile and reasons of the problem of sexual harassments among female college students.

A cross-sectional study including randomly selected 976 female students from different faculties of Kafrelsheikh University using a predesigned questionnaire sheet.

The main perceived concept of sexual harassment was touching body (63.9%) followed by uncomfortable behaviors by the assault (51.8%). Among urban students, 47.1% reported frequent sexual harassment as compared to 26.5% among rural students. The main motives to harassment were absence of sanctions (42.8%) followed by masculine culture. Absence of punishment ranked first (54.1%) as one of reasons for the phenomenon of harassments in the community followed by wrong concepts about women (46%). The main reaction to harassment was feeling bad and wishing to act (32.9%) followed by feeling bad but helpless (26.0%). Only 25.5% reported taking proper action. Experience of harassment was significantly more reported by urban students compared to rural ones (12.6% and 4.1%, respectively (P = 0.001).

Sexual harassment is not uncommon from of violence especially in urban areas mainly due to absence of sanctions and majority did not have capacity to take proper actions.