Institutions With Disciplinary Processes Should Be Analysed From A Gender Perspective
AHigher education institutions are part of society and end up reproducing the violence experienced by society. In this specific case, violent acts can be committed by professors, students, administrative technicians and outsourced workers, but these events are usually restricted to the academic environment, or for fear of reprisals or exposure and judgment of the entire community that, due to the patriarchy and machismo, tends to blame women for the harassment suffered. Another fact that encourages the lack of complaints is that many processes end without any type of punishment for the aggressors.
Faced with this scenario, the research group of the Human Rights Observatory, coordinated by Professor Carolina Costa Ferreira, from the Brazilian Institute of Teaching, Development and Research (IDP), after several studies, decided to rewrite, from a feminist point of view, a process disciplinary administrative case in which a teacher was denounced by students who suffered moral and sexual violence, within the scope of a higher education institution in the country. Professor Sirlene Moreira Fidelis, from the Federal University of Jataí, State of Goiás, is Fabiana Severi’s interviewee to talk about this rewriting in this week’s Women and Justice .
Initially, says the teacher, it is important to point out that these disciplinary administrative processes are confidential. “Furthermore, while in Justice the process is analyzed and judged by a single judge, in the administrative process the final report is conducted by three servants of the institution, who may be laypersons in Law, and the report is only suggestive, as the commission has no power to punish.”
The group reported the case from a feminist perspective, analyzed whether the records contained gender stereotypes such as: whether the woman had been drinking, what clothes she was wearing, whether there was supposed consent and whether the witnesses’ testimonies were heard. “All these stereotypes were realized in the rewrite.”
In the podcast, professor Sirlene also says how disciplinary processes are conducted and what guidelines they follow. These guidelines, she says, “do not bring recommendations for the use of international conventions on women’s human rights, nor national legislation that deals with the subject, thus making it difficult to conduct disciplinary administrative processes”.
About the results of the analyzed process, the researcher says that the teacher was punished and, as a consequence, lost his position, with that, it can be said that he achieved his purpose. “A good report was prepared, however, it contained terms and procedures that should have been avoided so that students did not suffer victimization.”
Expanding debates from a gender perspective
For Sirlene, there is an urgent need for higher education institutions to start working with themes related to the gender perspective, violence against women, racism, ableism, among other important themes for the formation of citizens. “Only then will we have qualified people to work in the justice system, in higher education institutions and in society as a whole. In this process, for example, due to institutional delays, the students made a public complaint, leading to revictimization.”
Another result of her work, according to the researcher, was to show that it is possible to extend the rewritings to the scope of disciplinary administrative processes, that is, to other areas of knowledge besides the judicial one. “Finally, it is necessary for the Comptroller General of the Union to incorporate international and national legislation on women’s human rights into its manual, so that the commissions can use them in their final reports and so that the processes are conducted with a gender perspective. .”
Still as a result, the researcher says that the disciplinary administrative process committee should have pointed out the responsibilities and recommendations pertinent to the university, remembering that the institution is a learning environment, promoting the personal and professional development of all the people inserted there. “In this sense, in promoting the fundamental right to education, it is important that, in addition to welcoming spaces, the university recognizes its responsibility and tries to minimally indicate spaces for debates, prevention and reparation to victims of abuse, harassment and sexual violence in a way that general.”
For the researcher, the difference between the decision of the disciplinary administrative process and the rewriting was not the final result of both, in this case, the dismissal of the civil servant, but rather theconcern about the substantiation of the commission’s report. In the rewrite, international norms, the Federal Constitution, protocols and recommendations associated with the gender perspective in the country were used, in addition to judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, documents that emphasize the importance of welcoming victims of sexual violence. “Our reasoning was much broader, we tried to understand what a case of sexual violence means in a university environment and the role of the commission that analyzes the administrative disciplinary process, so it is essential to look at the evidence of the process, also with a gender perspective .”