Malaysia – A student named Ain Husniza Saiful Nizam has taken to Tiktok, a popular short-video creation application, to shed light on the issue of school harassment.
The 17-year-old student starts off her viral video by saying that she was attending a PJK (physical and health education) lesson that was supervised by a male teacher.
In that class, the topics of personal wellness and sexual harassment were brought up.
Ain noted that the teacher made a few jokes that seemed normal at first. He also advised them to report harassment to adults around them.
However, as the lesson progressed, the jokes became more obscene.
When the class was discussing laws that protected those who were underage from sexual harassment or sexual abuse, the teacher made a comment about rape.
He said a person should choose someone over the age of 18 to rape rather than anyone under 18.
Ain recalled at that this comment, the girls in her class felt uncomfortable and threatened, and hence fell quiet.
‘If girls were in a situation (that) they were about to be raped, they should scream because that’s just what they know to do,’ Ain remembers her teacher saying.
The boys laughed at the teacher’s comments.
The teacher added that rape cases in which the victim is a male are normally not brought before the authorities since they “consider it delicious”.
Ain continued discussing the issue in another video that she later posted.
She reflected on the teacher’s statement about rape and how girls and boys react and think about it in different ways.
Her first TikTok video garnered more than 1.8 million views. Many students showed their support to her by sharing similar experiences of verbal and physical harassment and abuse. However, she says she also got a lot of backlash after posting the video.
Ain emphasised the need to make schools safer. She brought up how her video was discussed in a Facebook group consisting of teachers and how she was repulsed by some of their comments.
She received warning letters that left her feeling insecure and unsafe due to the lack of help and assistance from her school.
Ain said that she simply wished that the teacher did not repeat his actions and comments.
She also noticed that those who decided to speak up were penalised. She hopes that teachers and others in authority will listen to her story and do something to make schools safer for students./TISG