Sexual harassment among female undergraduate students in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

Background: Sexual harassment has become a significant problem around the world. The recent survey report also showed the widespread existence of sexual harassment among Thai adolescents. This study was conducted to assess the perception, risk behavior, and occurrences of sexual harassment among female undergraduate students in Bangkok, Thailand and find the related factors to the occurrence of sexual harassment.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in one public and one private university. The 440 female undergraduate students were recruited by multistage sampling method and completed self-administered questionnaire with 4 main parts including socio-demographics, perception, risk behaviors, and occurrence of sexual harassment. Chi-square, Fisher’s Exact test and multiple logistic regression were used to analyze the data.

Results: More than 70% of respondents had sexual harassment experience, and most of harassers were male students. The majority of students had high perception on sexual harassment with low risk behaviors. Grade Point Average (GPA), recreation, part-time job, and alcohol consumption were significantly positively associated with both perception level and risk behaviors while body image, part-time job, and alcohol consumption were significantly positively associated with sexual harassment occurrences (p<0.001, p=0.003, and p=0.001), respectively.

Conclusion: The occurrence of sexual harassment in female students frequently found in the university even they had high perception on sexual harassment and conducted themselves appropriately to reduce risk. Thus, the universities should consider establishing regulations, and legal punishment should be imposed on the harassers.