adminFadzayi Maposah
Correspondent
Many women have faced harassment from men travelling in open trucks either through whistling or making suggestive comments.
These men can shout anything. Some can complement dressing while others say the opposite.
Maybe their tastes vary, what else can I say?
Then there those who call out to ask your name and mobile number! Aaaah, it is bad.
This used to happen when we were young and it still happens now.
I have realised this is not about generations but the behaviour that some people portray when in open trucks.
I think as soon as one gets on a lorry, they cannot help but start calling out.
If you want to run out of breath, try responding to these calls and comments. You will lose so much energy that you may have to be admitted in hospital. The behaviour of such people can be draining.
One can only gaze at them and wonder, whose child are they? Who is their father? Who is their mother? Where did they grow up and learn such behaviour?
Mind you, it is not about some young people being naughty but about older people (I dare not call them mature) too joining in such crazy behaviour.
Of course, it is possible to come across people who are in a lorry who do nothing, but just call out for attention.
They will either be standing or seated quietly and having their own discussions.
When one calls out unnecessarily they quickly reprimand them. Every environment needs such an individual who is able to get the ones going out of line back on track.
There are various ages at tertiary institutions.
People are eager to advance academically and professionally and age is no barrier in this regard.
During the exam times, you will notice them seated across different campuses, in groups or as individuals peering through their notebooks and trying to grasp information from the notebooks or textbooks.
It is with serious commitment that both young and old engage in academic pursuit.
They know examiners will not be lenient towards them just because of their age.
Every student must be able to provide the required content to get the marks. That way no matter how old one is, they must meet the set requirements to pass.
The Government is running the Adolescent and Youth Sexual Reproductive Health programme, which seeks to empower young people to have access to reproductive health information and services and critical life skills.
It is done in various settings.
One of the settings is tertiary institutions.
Automatically all individuals within the tertiary institutions qualify to be empowered by the ASRH programme.
Some of the students may require services that others are still clueless about which shows the diversity of the institutions. What is targeted is the `lorry behaviour`.
Earlier on I talked about how people in an open truck tend to behave.
At times their age is of no consequence.
The same is true for tertiary institutions. By virtue of being students, the behaviour in most instances tends to be the same.
They are all away from home, family, spouses and even children.
Not having someone to look after them and enforce boundaries can be difficult for some.
It is important to have someone who provides critical information.
Some older people become young again and go back to living their youthful ways that may put even their spouses at risk of sexually transmitted infections including HIV.
In the quest to relive the youthful years, some may forget their responsibilities back at home and be like the older individuals in the lorry who just call out anything and anyhow.
I was in a discussion last week on whether it was a good idea for a husband to send his wife to school to advance herself.
Some men were of the opinion that it was not a good idea as they had seen the negative consequences.
They said women tended to show off as soon as they felt they were better than their spouse.
A few men were of the opinion that once one started sending their wife to school, they too must be prepared to do something to advance themselves.
Those men who vowed to empower their partners impressed me.
They would do this not just for the spouse but for their children`s sake given that they could die any moment and the empowered woman would be able to take care of the children.
Others in the group, male and female agreed that since the tertiary institution was a different community from the home environment, they would ensure their partners were adequately supported so that they would not be swept away by the glitters within the learning institutions.
It was agreed that there are women who could behave well even at the tertiary institutions as there are also men who can travel in an open truck but not engaging in rowdy behaviour.
There are some good people in some places that have been simply portrayed negatively.
Getting a particular service does not tell you the full story for you to judge people based on past experiences.
While you are busy labelling those getting a service, remember that tomorrow you may need it too and fear to get it because you do not want to be labelled!
Online Reporter