The most serious cases, i.e. touching, offers of advantages in exchange for sexual favors, revenge porn, rape and attempted rape, concern a little less than 4% of the total people who responded. Two thirds of these cases took place outside the HES-SO, often in a private setting.
More than half of female students affected by harassment
Female students are the most confronted with harassing behavior: 58% of them have been the target of at least one of the situations listed in the questionnaire. These include degrading remarks, unsolicited messages of a sexual nature, innuendo, whistling or unwanted body contact.
The results also show that measures to prevent harassment are not yet sufficiently known. In total, only 29% of the community says they are aware of it. This figure drops to 16% for female students. Efforts therefore still need to be made to improve the effectiveness of the systems and the monitoring of care.
The results of this vast survey thus confirm that the institution is affected, like society as a whole, by this phenomenon. Quoted in the press release, Luciana Vaccaro, rector of the HES-SO underlines that “sexual and sexist harassment concerns us all and a strong collective response is essential to fight against this scourge”. “Today, the HES-SO takes its responsibilities,” assures the rector.
New survey in 2027
The HES-SO will jointly with universities strengthen the prevention and management of sexual and gender-based harassment. It intends to better target its measures by focusing on students.
-Systematic prevention and awareness actions and a reminder of the institution’s zero tolerance policy towards these behaviors will be carried out at each academic year. A collaboration with the Federation of Student Associations will be set up to train their members in the prevention and fight against sexual and sexist harassment.
For higher education staff, the number of training courses on sexual and gender-based harassment will be increased. The HES-SO will also highlight more strongly to its community the normative framework and the means of action of higher education institutions to deal with and sanction cases.
This work will begin immediately and all of the planned measures will be deployed until the start of the 2025 academic year. In order to measure the evolution of the phenomenon and the relevance of the measures taken, the survey will be repeated in 2027.
