Makerere police has not received any case of sexual harassment reported at Makerere University for the past two years, leaving doubts as to whether there is sexual harassment at all at the institution.

The Makerere University say they have not recorded any complaints from students concerning sexual harassment at Makerere University in two years.

“As law enforcement team, sexual harassment is not a serious crime at Makerere because no one is raising a complaint and we cannot assume it is happening when it is not being reported,” said Nickson Okello, the Officer in Charge (OC) at Makerere University police station.

The officer revealed that students only report cases of theft of electronics and lost Identity Cards. He argued that sexual harassment may not even exist at Makerere University as some students could be using it as an excuse to cover up their academic weaknesses.

However, the OC advised students who might experience sexual harassment to report the matter “because if students don’t expose the problem, then we can’t fight it.”

Brian Tumukunde, a student at Makerere University does not rule out sexual harassment happening at Makerere University but blames police for being “weak at carrying out investigations which do not yield to punishment of culprits since sexual harassment itself is hard to prove in court.”

Racheal Njoroge, a former student of Makerere University who was allegedly molested by Mr. Edward Kisuuze, a former staff at the office of the academic registrar regrets having reported her experience. “It made me suffer public humiliation and condemnation, the whole experience was painful and I felt all alone and isolated after reporting the matter.”

Prof. Sylvia Tamale who chairs the five-member Anti-sexual Harassment Committee constituted by the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe in March 2018 to investigate into the sexual harassment vice at Makerere University says that “when victims sense that perpetrators do not face serious consequences, they do not bother to report other cases thus unwittingly protecting the predators.”

The report produced by the Anti-sexual harassment committee in June 2018 shows that ‘several known perpetrators of sexual harassment and assault at Makerere University get away unpunished and continue with their employment at the University normally.’

Prof. Sylvia Tamale blames this on a weak policy that the University administration adopted in 2006 and has failed to implement effectively, “for example it is not clear where and to whom victims of sexual harassment should report and prohibition of anonymous complaints discourages victims from reporting genuine cases.”

The latest Demographic and Health Survey by Uganda Bureau of Statistics of 2016 shows that every one in five women experiences sexual violence and women are more vulnerable to gender based sexual abuse compared to men.