The vast majority of students believe that having a sexual relationship with their teachers is wrong. They say students lose concentration, fail exams and end up on the streets. They also worry about pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases such as the HIV virus. In Rossetti's survey, an average of 11 percent of students said they wanted to quit school because a teacher had asked for sexual favours. Although violence against women is publicly condemned at the highest level, sexual harassment remains one of its most acceptable forms.
Many men think it is a way to ''soften women'' who they believe enjoy the ''attention''.
And while the government has signed numerous international agreements that condemn violence against women, the effects of these are still to trickle down to the grassroots. New gender policies, such as the 1995 Policy on Women in Development, are yet to be implemented. The country's code of conduct for teachers, produced in 1974 and never reviewed, is silent on the matter of sexual harassment or consensual sexual relations. The Ministry of Education has no policy in place. There is also no procedure for lodging complaints within schools themselves.