Over the years, we have been publishing cases of sexual harassment, assault, and sex-for-marks. Many of these have been of lecturers either asking for sex from female students, to give them better grades, or making unwanted sexual advances. Many of victims have been silenced in one way or another.
On Friday, January 5th, Makerere University students took to twitter with nothing less than fury, calling out the vice of sexual abuse, after the front page headline of The Daily Monitor, a popular news daily read, “MAK dons demand sex from students – report.”
It should be remembered that Makerere University has been at the centre of the biggest percentage of sexual harassment cases, which got some lecturers dismissed from the university, some acquitted, and often the issues were drastically forgotten. Some of the concerns the students raised under the hashtag #JusticeForAbusedStudents were about the acquitted lecturers,
In 2016, two lecturers whose names I will gladly mention here allegedly had this vice of demanding for sex from their students in exchange for marks. These were Mr. Christopher Bakuneta & Mr. Brian Musaga of Makerere University. How did it end??? #JusticeForAbusedStudents
— Iriba♻️Davi (@Owomunshozi) January 5, 2018
Another rather disturbing argument, is that some abused girls decide to keep quiet about it, fearing being impeded from graduating,
I know a lecturer from Social Sciences who is still tossing my friend for her marks that he misplaced,
He gave her a hotel room key if she wants her marks.#JusticeForAbusedStudents— Auntie Prossy (@VivianIngariatP) January 5, 2018
However as expected, students of Makerere University couldn’t miss the chance to call out the issue of their old varsity being “reb-branded”.
The visitation committed report recommended re-branding of Makerere University. How are you re-branding it while the ladies are being sexually harassed? How about you start by re-branding the lecturers who abuse the students #JusticeForAbusedStudents
— Sheena Ainerukundo (@sheena_amate) January 5, 2018
Also, some girls get abused by their male friends whom they go to visit at halls of residence and hostel, case in point is the medicine student, Mukyemu Jeremiah, who allegedly attempted to rape his lady friend who had come to visit him at Mitchell Hall, which led to her jumping out of the storeyed building and breaking her limbs.
By press time, Makerere University’s tech-savvy Vice Chancellor and ardent Twitter user, Professor Barnabas Nawangwe, who had been mentioned a number of times, hadn’t tweeted back on the hashtag.
