Developing a Preventive Gendered Participatory Approach to Prevent Sexual Harassment among Soldiers in Zambia
John Mwitumwa Matakala1*,Mubiana Macwani1,Philimon Ndubani1,Annie Namakando-Phiri1
Citation :John Mwitumwa Matakala,Mubiana Macwani,Philimon Ndubani,Annie Namakando-Phiri, Developing a Preventive Gendered Participatory Approach to Prevent Sexual Harassment among Soldiers in Zambia International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education 2018,5(2) : 9-16
The aim of the thesis was to develop a Preventive Gendered Participatory Approach to Prevent Sexual Harassment among Soldiers through social action. The study was grounded on the philosophy of interpretivism and interpretivism phenomenology research design. Purposive and respondent driven sampling were used to come up with the desired sample size of 74 and the resultant data were collected through a dual research process. Data collection was achieved using both in-depth and focus group discussions. The findings were thermalized chronologically in line with research questions, which were on typologies, characteristics of harassers and availability and application of sexual harassment programmes and policies, before social action by selected victims. The findings on the typologies for the participants were verbal and non-verbal harassment for the females while verbal harassment was established from the males. The findings of the characteristics for both male and female victims were seen through gender discriminatory behavior. The findings on the availability and application of sexual harassment programmes and policies showed that there was none though there was a new gender desk in its infancy stage. As per requirement, the researcher proposed a recommendation, which was used by a selected gendered focus group team of victims who developed a 6 phased preventive gendered participatory approach for preventing sexual harassment among soldiers in Zambia. The findings showed that if sexual harassment was not put on check it would affect the gendered input of the victims at work. It is against this background a more practical and workable solution based on victims input has been adopted for implementation by military authorities.