When I interviewed students of both genders from different Iraqi universities regarding university security guards and their behaviour, they agreed that harassment is increasing but not discussed because some senior university officials tacitly back it.

A female student shouted in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, demanding accountability for those who verbally harassed female students inside and outside the University of Baghdad’s campus, amidst students’ applause and officials’ confusion.  

The story began when students found the two stray dogs which they had been taking care of dead. They requested a meeting with the university administration and accused university security staff of killing the two dogs.  

During the meeting, a student took the opportunity to expose some of the offenders in the university security staff and pointed out one of them trying to escape through the crowded hall. The next day, the  he stood, as usual, at the faculty gate. Meanwhile, the deanship banned mobile phones with cameras from entering the campus, because of a social media campaign launched by students against their faculty administration. 

The campaign received wide dissemination and a considerable response from students. Comments on Instagram flagged up that some professors and administration employees were also guilty of harassment, and it was not only limited to security staff. 

Security guards intimidate students instead of protecting them 

Last March, students circulated a video showing security guards severely beating students from the Pharmacy Department at Al-Manara College in Maysan. Some of the students were taken to hospital with moderate injuries. Following this, the College’s deanship dismissed four security guards. 

“However, the incident was not the first”, according to Massar Samari, a professor in the Pharmacy Department of Al-Manara College. This is confirmed by videos of similar incidents which have circulated occasionally.  

Most university security guards are men; only a few women get security jobs in or outside universities. The guards are divided into three groups. In public universities, guards are affiliated with the Ministry of Interior and are positioned metres away from the gates and around the university buildings. They wear military uniforms and their job is to remove any external security threats. 

In the corridors of educational institutions, including universities and college admissions departments, there are guards affiliated with the Directorate for the Protection of Institutions and Persons of the Police Agency of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior. 

In private universities, administrations directly hire individuals to work as “university security”. They wear civilian clothes, monitor students, hold them accountable, and often blackmail and harass them. 

Although women are the security guards’ primary targets, men are also victims. “They are similar to the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. They rebuke us for our hairstyles or how we dress”, said Ali Al-Muftin, who recently graduated from Bab Al-Zubair University in Basra. 

Universities are unsafe for female students 

When I interviewed students of both genders from different Iraqi universities regarding university security guards and their behaviour, they agreed that harassment is increasing but not discussed because some senior university officials tacitly back it.  

H.M., a student of Education at Wasit University, was the first person I interviewed. She was interrogated for about three hours in the security room with five guards crowding round her, spouting moral lectures after seeing her walking with one of her male colleagues. 

“I cried, begged, and apologised for my ‘bad behaviour’ to prevent them from telling my family that I was walking with a young man at the university. With every tear I shed with the humiliation I felt, I could see the smiles broaden on their faces”, she said. 

After H.M. was freed from the interrogation and its psychological trauma, she reminded herself that she had done nothing wrong, “I was just walking away from those watching me, but the psychological violence I had been subjected to made me feel like I had committed an immoral crime. They called me bad-mannered”. 

Such incidents have happened to other female students in public and private universities. They fear reporting the incidents to the administration or their families because they may be suspected of having transgressed morally just because of reporting it. Many female students are subjected to verbal harassment from security guards in universities, who even blackmail them if they are in a relationship or just a friendship with a colleague. 

Strict rules enforced by intimidation 

University administrations collude with security guards by setting rules that limit students’ freedom, which security guards enforce in various ways, including through insults and rebukes. 

Ghadir, an Administration and Economics student at Kufa University, said that the university prevents female students from leaving the campus before the end of official hours of study. However, this rule does not apply to male students, as they are free to go out. “Security guards prevent female students from leaving the campus because they ‘fear’ for them, or because they believe that they may be acting ‘immorally’ if they leave the campus during hours of study”. 

These rules are widely applied in universities, especially private Islamic ones, which have increased in number in the past decade. In Imam Al-Kadhum Colleges, located across Iraqi provinces, female students who do not wear the Islamic dress “Jubba” are expelled. 

Dr Amjad Al-Qutbi, a professor at the college, justified this by saying, “we are trying to keep a reputable profile by making our students wear modest clothing because, in the end, we are affiliated with the Shiite Endowment”. For instance, the public university of Al-Diwaniyah has expelled students for not wearing Islamic dress, which is often the traditional loose abaya. 

However, rules imposed by universities are subject to the whims of security guards and the administrations applying them. Moayad, an employee at the University of Kirkuk who preferred to give his first name only, said that women are dealt with according to “your eye is your measure” principle, meaning that a woman’s modesty is determined according to the employee’s beliefs, ideas, and vision of the concept of “modesty”. 

“Regarding the university where I work, it is controlled by an extremist militia, which he refused to name, and most security guards belong to it, so they determine modesty and honour according to their extremist beliefs”. 

Harassment 

Besides the strict dress code and prohibitions in relation to going off campus, female students face harassment and blackmail from some professors and principals.  

“I needed to retake an exam that I missed when I was ill, so I went to the university dean and asked him to help me convince the professor”, said Hind, a university student who preferred not to give her full name. “He left his chair, sat next to me, touched my hand with his fingers, and said: ‘Of course, but you must pay me another visit and make more of an effort in order for me to help you’”. It took Hind a few minutes to realise that this was harassment. 

“I quietly withdrew from the situation, feeling that I could not continue studying at this university. I told a professor whom I consider more like a brother or a father, and he said that no one would believe me, so I decided to remain silent”. 

Hind refused to reveal the identity of the harasser or the name of the university because she did not want to “have a confrontation in which she would definitely lose”, she said.  

Muhammad Adnan Al-Sheikh, a member of the Iraqi Student and Youth Association, said that “harassment begins when professors or principals make a student feel special. She gets their approval and facilitation if she obeys them and exchanges glances and affection with them, but her rejection has consequences that include failure, harassment, and constant surveillance”. 

Universities are driving out their female students 

Being subjected to such intimidation and blackmail campaigns from university security guards, which  university principals, professors, and employees allow and support, or even participate in, many female students have no other choice than to withdraw from university or move to another. 

Security guards continued to blackmail H.M. saying they would tell her family about her walking with a male colleague on the university campus, eventually forcing her to drop out of her studies. And Hind moved to another university because the dean targeted her after she rejected his advances.