TIMELY to the International Women’s Month celebration this March, Safer Campuses Ph called for revisions to the law that criminalizes gender-based sexual harassment in public areas, work places, schools and online amid recent reports about such happening in many campuses nationwide.
Since the enactment of the Safe Spaces Act (SSA), the newly launched coalition of student organizations and councils across the country has monitored at least 61 schools with campus predators, of which many are still employed in their institutions, or have transferred to others without facing administrative and criminal charges, enabling the possibility of committing the same offenses.
“We cannot wait for another victim before…legislators and education officials admit that they have failed to protect students,” stated Sophie Reyes who is the lead convenor of “Enough Is Enough”—a convening member of the coalition.
“It is distressing that instead of bringing about sweeping reforms in the education sector to stamp out campus predators and their enablers, the SSA has miserably failed to serve as a deterrent,” Reyes added.
The youth leader underscored that instead of refining the policy that was ratified five years ago, last week’s hearings on the proposed charter change have centered on provisions about foreign ownership of the education sector.
“Now that officials are busy discussing the liberalization and foreign control of universities, gender justice seems to be farther than it was before…,” she said.
Last March 8, Safer Campuses Ph joined women’s organizations and progressive groups for the Women’s Day program in Mendiola, Manila to rally against the proposed Cha-cha.
Afterwards, they went to the Professional Regulation Commission Head Office in Sampaloc, Manila to deliver its position paper on the need to cancel professional licenses of campus predators and strip them of the authority to teach and work.
The coalition’s major demands regarding amendments to the law are mandating schools to provide psychological, legal, and financial support for victim-survivors; charging predators and enablers with criminal and administrative cases; revoking professional licenses and the blacklisting of campus predators; establishing a publicly-available national registry of sex offenders; and non-retaliatory policy to protect students from enabling school administrators.