The survey was on students’ safety in schools, a part of the safe college campus project conducted at the Hanoi University of Education, the University of Education under Thai Nguyen University, and Hong Duc University.

The project has the support of UN Women and aims to eliminate gender-based violence, including sexual harassment at universities.

As many as 944 students at the schools said they had experienced at least one of three manifestations of sexual harassment.

Of these, the number of female students was higher (812 out of 944 students, or 86 percent) than male students in all three manifestations.

As many as 315 female students reported verbal sexual harassment, including flirting, sexually suggestive gestures, comments and jokes, while only 23 male students reported this form of harassment.

As for the behavior of sexually harassing with images (showing or sending sexual images or videos that victims do not want to see or receive), the figures were 140 for women and 15 for men.

School officers and lecturers also experienced sexual harassment. More than 30 percent (105 out of 350) said they experienced at least one manifestation of harassment.

Both students and officers/lecturers suffered different forms of violence, including physical, emotional, economic and sexual violence. Mental violence accounted for the highest proportion.

In general, students and officers/lecturers who were harassed said violence and sexual harassment are not common in their schools and that it is not a worrying problem.

However, they worried of the unsafety at some places, such as the way to dorms, entrance doors and stadiums. Meanwhile, lecture halls, libraries and dorms are the places with highest levels of safety for both students and officers/lecturers during/after working hours.

Assessing unsafety levels, students listed the ways to dorms as the most unsafe places (32.9 percent for office hours and 52.6 percent for non-office hours). The figures were 26.6 percent and 39.6 percent, respectively, for entrance doors.

One of the most noteworthy findings is that 51 percent said they did not know about the existence of consultancy rooms at their schools.

The surveyors have proposed that the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) should release a code of conducts to ensure safety for students and officers/lecturers in school campuses, and it needs to join relevant agencies to compile regulations to punish violence and sexual harassment behaviors.

Thanh Hung