Prevalence and characteristics of sexual harassment among high school students: a pilot study

Sexual harassment is a topic of interest for more than two or three decades, but today its relevancy has developed into a powerful movement called #metoo. This movement is a signal for researchers to collect more data on the phenomenon called sexual harassment, pointing out subjective experiences of the victims and especially vulnerable populations, which might be useful in later prevention programs. Previous researches demonstrated that adolescents are in a high risk of becoming victims of sexual harassment, more often perpetrated by peers than by teachers or other adults [1- 4]. Girls experience sexual harassment more often than boys do, furthermore, girls tend to experience sexual harassment qualitatively more severe and subjectively more negative [1,2,5-7]. According to AAUWEF report on sexual harassment at school, the majority of incidents are made up of verbal sexual harassments (unwelcome sexual comments, jokes, or gestures), but physical sexual harassment seems to be also an issue at schools [8]. The other important point is that more than a half of students experience sexual harassment more than once per school year. Around 9 percent of students indicate that a harasser was a teacher or other adult at school, however, many incidents remain untold and unknown [8]. It has been reported that sexual harassment at school might have short or even longer consequences for students’ emotions and education, especially for girls’, including decreased productivity and absenteeism from school [9]. Moreover, girls report more psychosomatic symptoms than boys do and also they show lower self-esteem levels compared to boys