KABUL (SW): Shayesta: In 2007, I studied at Kabul University, School of Psychology. In the first semester, the former vice dean marked me failed. I went to the professor for passing this exam several times. When I went to the professor's office, I was always taking one of my friends with me. But the professor always repeatedly troubled me as soon as he saw me, and did not say the date for the re-examination.
Until he told me one day, "if you want to take the exam, you have to come to my office alone". I also accepted the professor's request with clear intentions and without any doubts and went to his office alone. When I entered the room, the professor immediately closed the door behind me and asked me to sit near his own chair.
I responded that I was comfortbale in my own place. I sat down at the chair beside the table; but the professor turned his chair and approached my feet. I tried to crouch myself but did not work. The the professor looked at me and said with kindness that don't think much, your exam problem will be solved.
Then he began to say, "I look at you differently, you are a clever girl, your beauty is so and so". I first dried like a wood and I did not know what to say. I tried to tell the professor that I had a husband and I am not like the girls that he thought of me.
I was talking that the professor put his hands on my feet. I immediately jumped and said, "you don't feel ashamed?" Do you consider yourself a professor? Then I left his office crying.
Tomorrow, I shared the whole story with our class representative. The class representative decided to take a group of our classmates and go to face the professor and to ask him to take my exam. But the professor with glory responded to our classmates that they should go out because he was dealing with Shayesta (me) only.
I was crying and asked my classmates to not leave me alone with the professor. My classmates finally took the courage to stand against the professor and asked him seriously to take my exam. The professor accepted and took the exam, but he did not give me the result.
I waited one month. During that one month time, the two other professors, who had also bad intentions and I saw that in their eyes already, were trying to intimidate me as well. Eventually, my patience run out and I told everything to my husband. My husband was a police officer and after hearing all these things that have happened to me, he came to the Univesity with hate and anger and flustered with the faculty and professors of the University.
The he also prevented me from continuing my eduaction and said "it is better that you be at home".
Hamidullah Farooqi, the President of Kabul University: The topic of sexual abuses in the universities of our country is a very serious debate. The law on the Elimination of Violence against Women is a vital law for universities. This law should be fully implemented across univresities. With Kabul University, there is an institution called "Gender Support", with a female heading that institution, the responsibility of the deputy of student affairs is also to deal with the cases of violence against women. No complaints have ever been filed in these two entities, and these were just accusations made in the social media networks, nothing else.
ENDS
