No lip-to-lip touching at orientation camps, students advised

Physical contact including lip-to-lip touching in university orientation camps already can constitute sexual harassment if it causes participants or spectators to be uncomfortable, the chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission, Ricky Chu Man-kin, says.

The commission has proposed to amend the Sex Discrimination Ordinance to cover suspicious behavior during joint-university orientation camps, he said.

Speaking on a TV program yesterday, Chu said sexual harassment is an unwelcome act with sexual intention, which will also make others feel worried, embarrassed or even scared.

The recent activities during university orientation camps for freshmen can be regarded as sexual harassment, he said.

"For example, behavior including lip-to-lip contact and making girls wear clothes in light colors while forbidding them to get changed after getting wet may not be as serious as criminal offenses," Chu said.

"But some can already find these acts upsetting and unwelcome, meaning these acts are illegal sexual harassment."

He also said whether a behavior is sexual harassment should be judged by a standard that is commonly adopted by society.

"People should not rationalize the incident, saying 99 out of 100 people on site agree to the suspected sexual harassment and only one or two people are against it, this is not an excuse," Chu said.

Making students watch such activities and getting upset could still constitute sexual harassment, even if students were allowed not to take part in the activities themselves.

Chu said sexual harassment is common among university students as a survey conducted by the commission in 2019 showed nearly one-fourth of students had been sexually harassed over the past year.

However, only one in 40 harassed students would report the case to the universities.

Chu said there was too much tolerance for sexual harassment nowadays as youngsters wanted to show they have an open mind and trendy thoughts.

The EOC is not a commission for moral constraint and doesn't want the society to return to ancient times, he said. But there should be a common social standard to evaluate controversial behavior.

"Participants from different universities have an equal status, so the existing Sex Discrimination Ordinance may not be able to regulate sexual harassment allegations," he said.

"The camp organizers, on the other hand, have a trust relationship with the freshmen despite they are from different universities and the senior students have power due to their higher status at the camp.

"Therefore, inappropriate behaviors could be regulated by the ordinance."

He said the commission proposed to amend the ordinance to cover joint-university activities in 2021.

The government was considering the amendment and believed the authorities would support it.