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Hong Kong lawmakers call for stronger stance on ‘licensed sexual harassment’ at university orientation camps
- Equal Opportunities Commission ‘deeply concerned’ about incidents, calls for student organisers to undergo anti-harassment training
- Lawmakers want tougher police action and stiffer punishments to screen student events and deal with ‘culture’ of harassment at orientation events
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Orientation camps at universities in Hong Kong have been condemned as having degenerated into “licensed collective sexual harassment”, with some lawmakers appealing to the city’s equality watchdog to boost oversight of the events as the summer holiday approaches.
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The calls were made as legislators were briefed by the Equal Opportunities Commission on prevention of sexual harassment on campuses at a panel meeting on Monday.
Commission chairwoman Linda Lam Mei-sau told the panel her agency was “deeply concerned” about reports of sexual harassment incidents at orientation camps in recent years.
Lam said: “To prepare for the orientation activities in summer this year, we sent letters to tertiary institutions in April, calling on them to require students who are in charge of planning and executing orientation activities to receive anti-sexual harassment training.
“We also offered to support them in delivering the training.”
Lawmaker Tang Fei of the Federation of Education Workers said stronger law enforcement and harsher penalties were needed to deal with the normalisation of sexual harassment at universities.
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