Introduction

Sexual harassment, one of the social problems in modern society with social justice implications, has been accrued to the invisible problem of sexual violence facing women across the globe; it is covertly sustained in developing nations by the patriarchal system (Okafor, 2020). This is reified in the factor of sexual harassment myths backing the male-dominated society among developing nations (Santos et al., 2021; Cusmano, 2018; Ajayi, Chantler, & Radford, 2022). The menace of sexual harassment as well as violence against women covertly spurred by the phenomenon of sexual harassment myths, is quite enduring. From relevant statistics published by the World Health Organisation in conjunction with some Non-Governmental Organisations, there are startling evidence of the prevalence of sexual harassment, which is spread among the regions of the globe such that, each of the regions has its own burden of sexual harassment (WHO, 2015). Almost one-third (30%) of all women who have been in a relationship have experienced physical and sexual violence by their intimate partner while in some regions, 38% of women have experienced intimate partner violence. Globally, 7% of women have been sexually assaulted by someone other than a partner. Owing to the patriarchal system, which has little or no regard for sexual harassment involving women in most developing nations, dimensions, and degrees of sexual harassment tend to be more highlighted and reported in the developed nations according to the available data and statistics due to knowledge and measurable policy framework, powered by gender equality and enlightenment on social justice principles among the population (Sikka, 2022; Marrot, 2019; United Nations Women, 2020a; Benya, Widnall, & Johnson, 2018; United Nations Women, 2020b; Palermo, Bleck, & Peterman, 2014). Meanwhile, in the developing nations, sexual harassment is enshrouded in the cultural hegemony enslaving women’s rights as well as making their voice void in the system fraught with patriarchal principles (Ademiluka, 2018; Jayachandran, 2015).

The unseen infringement of women’s rights and domination over women in the interpersonal relationship, communal and societal settings as it affects sexual rights is advanced by sexual harassment myths domicile in the sub-consciousness of the youth. Sexual harassment myths as a counter measure to social justice and gender equality against women in developing nations are not only a threat to the prospects of development among these nations, but also a global concern with implications for the United Nations sustainable development goals (United Nations Women, 2020a&b).

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs no.5& no.16), which champion gender equality for women and girls as well as a just, peaceful, and democratic world, and justice for all (General Assembly of the United Nations, 2015), are already threatened among the developing nations such as Nigeria where sexual harassment involving the female folks is swept under the carpet in the cloud of sexual harassment myths. While this injustice is much blamed on the patriarchal system marginalizing women (Okafor, 2020), this is exacerbated by the passivity of the youths in the institutions of higher learning communities who are invariably the future of the war against sexual harassment and sexual violence against women in the ongoing orientations and war against sexual violence and offence. Specifically, youth in the higher learning institutions may be expected to be more progressive in their thinking about sexuality and gender differences/relations than the general population. However, in most cases, they seem to lack knowledge and capacities to prevent sexual violence as a social injustice against the female folk due to gender sensitivity powered by the patriarchal structure (Huhtanen, 2020).

This, to some extent, is reinforced by the myths surrounding the problem of sexual harassment, such as rape mythology and sexual harassment mythology, which in one way or the other, hinders the ability of the victims of sexual harassment and concerned fellows in reporting the matter and openly denouncing them (Crittenden, 2009). Sexual harassment myths, limited legal and policy frameworks, as well as definitional frameworks, have all together made the observation and reporting of sexual harassment blurred and fluidly complicated with enduring negative implications to social justice (Marrott, 2019; Madrid, Joanpere, de Botton, & Campdepadrós, 2020; McGlynn & Westmarland, 2018).

Rape myth, which is more visible in the capturing of the sexual offence, cruelty, violence, and the likes of which sexual harassment is involved, has been specifically framed by scholars across the time on measurable scales and eventually, capturing the strings of everyday linguistic and behavioural interactions promoting sexual harassment myths (Recalde-Esnoz, Héctor, & Gemma, 2021). Among the scales and measures projecting the indices of rape/sexual harassment myths and acceptance are the Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (RMAS) (Burt, 1980), Attitude Towards Rape scale (ATR) (Field, 1978), the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance (IRMA) (Payne et al. 1999), Acceptance of Modern Myth about Sexual Aggression (AMMSA) (Gerger et al., 2007), Alcohol and Sexual Consent Scale (ASCS) (Ward et al., 2012), Illinois Sexual Harassment Myth Acceptance (ISHMA) (Lonsway et al., 2008), Acceptance of Myths about Sexual Violence (AMSV) (Janos & Epinosa, 2015) and the more recent Acceptance of Myths of Sexual Assault on University Campuses (AMSAUC) (Recalde-Esnoz, Héctor, & Gemma, 2021).

Sexual harassment myths as an enduring challenge to women’s freedom are not only a threat to sustainable development but a segmented injustice against women with some implications for social justice. This is anchored on the common morality and collective conscience of contemporary society. Social justice, as one of the enduring concepts and realities with contemporary relevance, is captured in need for the empowering of the populace in the collective approach and management of justice in a rather proactive and pragmatic manner (Hong & Marine, 2018; Prakash, 2015). While justice as captured in extant rules and laws of the societies of antiquity and the contemporary societies appeared to be passive and perhaps selective/segmental, social justice is active and proactive in dealing with the overbearing circumstances surrounding the population in question to maintain a collective, sustainable, and trusted justice system (Harris & Linder, 2017; Hong & Marine, 2018; Hassan & Mojtaba, 2016).

Beyond the passivity of traditional justice, the pragmatic approach of social justice to perceived and observed elements of injustice incorporates the institutional factors, context, and individual dynamics of the factors of injustice as well as using counter-narratives, incorporation, cooperative and transformational approach to prevention, culturally differing methods informed by insight and outsight as well as sustainable moral courage build-up in managing, countering and preventing injustice (Hong, 2017; Harris & Lynder, 2017). As a matter of empirical relevance, social justice modelling has been domesticated and applied by various institutions and organizations as a counter sexual harassment program; this includes NASPA Culture of Respect CORE Bluepring, Berkowitz Social Norm Approach, Harvard University OSAPR Approach, San Francisco State University Title IX Program, Emory University RespectCon, etc. of which majority of them have proved sustainability in countering sexual harassment as social injustice (Hong & Marine, 2018; NASPA, 2017).

Sexual harassment myths have been prevalent among undergraduate students of higher institutions of learning, a group expected to be more progressive in its thinking about sexuality and gender differences/relations than the general population in developing nations. While the social justice implication of sexual harassment myths is found within the region of collective conscience and cult of morality among the youth, the information yet lacking in social justice and sexual violence literature is the resilient factors to sexual harassment myths among the supposedly anti-social injustice (modern youths) in the institutions of higher learning in the developing nations such as southeast Nigeria. The imperativeness of investigating this in southeast Nigeria anchors on the fact that this is a much-neglected area of the widespread sexual violence and violence against women in relation to justice for all, which is invariably captured as a serious concern in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 5&16. The paper aimed to empirically approach the sexual harassment myth concept and social justice among undergraduate students in southeast Nigerian campuses with a focus on the factors supporting sexual harassment myths and the overall perception of such among undergraduate students in Southeast Nigeria.

In view of the aforementioned, the study was guided by the following research questions:

• What is the prevalence of sexual harassment myths acceptance among the Undergraduate students on campus among the institutions of higher learning in Southeast Nigeria?

• What is the correlation between sexual harassment myths acceptance and attitude towards social justice among the Undergraduate students on campus among the institutions of higher learning in Southeast Nigeria?

• What are the predicting factors for gendered attitudes towards sexual harassment myths acceptance among the Undergraduate students on campus among the institutions of higher learning in Southeast Nigeria?

• What are the predicting factors to social justice consciousness among the Undergraduate students on campus among the institutions of higher learning in Southeast Nigeria?

Theoretical Framework (Social Justice in the context of Giddens Structuration/Durkheim Conscience Collective Models)

Different societies over the years have been unconsciously patterned to function in a particular way, which the members of the society grow into, and unconsciously sustain. In Sociological parlance, structures represent the unseen webs, networks, supporting elements to the overall societal way of life and pattern of operation (Okafor, 2020). According to Giddens, society is the product of invisible structures unconsciously designed by the members of society to determine how, why, when and where certain activities should take place among the members of society (Giddens, 1984). Structuration theory, a middle range theory and the byproduct of structuralism and structural functionalism, explains the society as a whole sustained by the parts, with the structures holding it. While the parts in the structural-functionalism parlance can be summed as the social institutions in the society such as family, education, governance, religion, and economy, in the structuration theoretical orientation, the elements of the structures are more of the micro and structurally relevant factors operating to sustain the system towards a particular direction. Using the concept of rules and resources, Giddens maintained that the human agents in the social system sustained the societal structures through rules and maintained the elements of the societal structures through the resources, which are the human beings growing in the system.

Conscience collective or collective effervescence among the thematic focuses of Emile Durkheim is on the possibility of unified understanding, observable in prevalent moral obligation among a group. From Durkheim’s l’âmecollective in which the original meaning and intention, was the understanding of the coming together of individual minds in the society, to create a consistent moral commitment (Wortmann, 2016), society is seen as the creation from the minds of men from which the material and non-material social facts emerged and became reified (Hagens, 2006). According to Parsons (1949), Durkheim was interested in the process by which society at different levels and stages is created by the human mind. This, according to him, moves from the stage of individual perception and interpretation of the realities around them to giving credence to the importance of the prevailing phenomenon. Once the majority of the members of the society adopt such understanding, it becomes a dominant moral order at least for the time (Ritzer, 2011). According to Hagens (2006), at the centre of the collective effervescence theme in Durkheimian Sociological doctrine, one can find a collective consciousness that makes up a ‘social fact’ and contains socially instituted morality within itself.

Sexual harassment myths that contradict the principles of social justice as the byproduct of patriarchy has induced among the African population, the idea of male supremacy. Boys are trained to see the girls as weaklings; girls are trained to see themselves as susceptible to the male folks and therefore live at their (male folks’) mercy wherever they meet them. These trainingare unconsciously introduced through a number of social traffic lenses such as the language, dressing, family etiquette, educational institutions, communal life anchored on male dominance, and the invisible overarching pressure of submission to, and isolation from male folks. As obtainable among the developing nations such as in southeast Nigeria, the children are trained into unseen gender inequality and male supremacy through language, dressing, family etiquette, and communal lifestyle dominated by male supremacy, which in the long run generate other social crises among the population such as building sexual violence against the women into the moral cult (collective conscience) of the youth from which the error of sexual harassment myths are upheld.

Sexual harassment is still perceived as the error and fault of the victims, especially when it involves female folks who are seen as supposed to be isolated from men except in the circumstances of marriage and family relationship. This can be seen in the high schools in the southeast region of Nigeria, where girls go together and boys go together such that, within the subconscious mind of the youth, women are expected to appear as slaves to men, ostensibly to maintain decency. The structural disposition of the society as it is obtainable in southeast Nigeria hinders social justice against women. While the males are trained into anti-social justice behavior in matters such as sexual harassment and moral justification of injustice affecting the opposite sex, the girls are automatically trained into the passivity of social patriarchy contradicting gender equality as well as their freedom. The structuration model as well as the conscience collective models is relevant to this paper as they point to the way the society unknowingly trains the members into the acceptance of sexual harassment myths and maintains this in the moral cult (collective conscience) of men against social justice principles as far as the female gender is concerned.

Methodology

The study was carried out in the southeast Nigerian region. Nigeria as federation/country comprises six geopolitical zones: northeast, northwest, north-central, southwest, southeast, and south-south. Each of the regions comprises at least five administrative states; in southeast Nigeria, there are five administrative states, which made up the region. The study focused on the federal, state, and private sponsored institutions of higher learning in the region. In the southeast Nigeria, there are 5 federal Universities, about 9 state Universities, more than 18 private Universities. In the category of polytechnics, there are 9 federal polytechnics, about 14 state polytechnics, more than 20 private polytechnics in the region. In the category of colleges of health, technology, Agriculture and education, there are more than 15 federal colleges, more than 17 state colleges and more than 16 private colleges in the region.

The study focused on the federal government approved institutions as elimination method to create sampling frame for the study. The federal ministry of education has the power to accredit every institution of higher learning across Nigeria in order to safeguard the public against unhealthy institutions of higher learning. Using the federal government accredited higher institutions of learning for the sampling frame; there are 71 federal approved higher institutions of learning in the region from which the study drew 44 institutions of higher learning. The study involved 1716 male and female undergraduate students from 44 federal, state, and private Universities, polytechnics, and colleges from southeast Nigeria. Simple random sampling was applied in selecting 44 institutions of higher learning from the approved 71 federal, state, and private sponsored institutions of higher learning in the region, while equal probability sampling technique was applied in selecting 39 respondents from the faculties/colleges, departments and units across the 44 selected institutions of higher learning.

The age limit for the study was put at 17years in recognition of the federal government of Nigeria’s ministry of education benchmark for undergraduate admission, which is 16years. The study was motivated by the rampant cases of sexual harassment in the institutions of higher learning and the observed attitude of the youth towards sexual harassment, which in most cases encourages the menace, especially when it involves the female folks. As such the study sort for study area as well as study design, which will focus on the youth in a sufficient manner so as to understand the phenomenon of sexual harassment myths among the youths, which in itself, is the trigger for other forms of sexual violence and offences across the region. The study adopted a survey design, which utilized a questionnaire as a data collection instrument. The questionnaire instrument helped the study to elicit the necessary information on sexual harassment myths for the study.

In view of the nature of the population involved in the study and level of development in the region, which imply the understanding and knowledge of issue of sexual harassment, the study applied the combination of the sexual violence, sexual harassment and rape myths scales’ indices applicable to the environment of the study in order to accommodate the population and collect the rightful information for the study. The questionnaire was designed on an ordinal scale with such indices as the acceptance of sexist comments, sexual coercion, sexual imposition, sexual solicitation, gesture, images, threats, etc. among the study participants. These were captured in the questionnaire instrument on a Likert scale. The questionnaire instrument was tested in a pilot study involving 5 institutions of higher learning and with 105 students for internal consistency and familiarity among the students. From our observation, 102 (97.1%) of the questionnaires were properly filled by the students without a guide from the researchers, which showed a commendable level of familiarity with the questionnaire instrument to the targeted respondents. The overall consistency of the questionnaire items according to Cronbach alpha value is (0.89). However, according to the item-by-item analysis, the reliability values of the major variables are sexual harassment (0.81) as well as sexual harassment myth (0.84). The collected data were analysed using statistical software, while the substantive issues to the study were accorded appropriate attention using the appropriate statistics and models such as linear model, correlation analysis (rho & r), and descriptive statistics.

Presentation of the Findings from the Study

Table 1: The Socio-demographic information of the Study Participants

The study spread across 857 (49.9) of males and 859 (50.1%) of the female students selected from the institutions of higher learning in the region. Among the study participants, 38.9% were in the age category of 17-22 years, 44.4% were in the age category of 23-28years while, 16.7% were in the age category of 29years and above. From the table1 above, 11.1% of the participants are in the first year of study, 16.6% are in their second year of study, 33.3% are in their third year of study, 11.1% are in their fourth year of study, while27.8% are in the 5^th and more years of study. Majority of the study participants (61.1%) are Christians, 27.8% are Muslims, while about five percent are African Traditional Religion and non-religion adherents respectively. The type of secondary/high school attended by these students was important in this study owing to the need to observe the impacts of mixed sex education, which come from religious and non-religious based high schools. As such, the inclusion of this variable in the study was to know the proportion of the students in the study who were trained in the religious based, private as well as public high schools and the implication of this to the overall issues of sexual harassment and sexual harassment myths. From table1 above, majority of the study participants (44.5%) were trained in private and faith-based secondary schools, 22.2% were trained in the private but not faith-based high schools, while 33.3% were trained in public high schools.

Sex education was measured in the study by the participants’ voluntary information that they have been educated on sexual rights and sexual activities as part of life and human existence, observing the rights and limitations of individuals’ engagement in sexual activities with others. 22.2% of the respondents indicated that they do not have sex education, 44.5% indicated that they have moderate sex education, while 33.3% indicated that they have high sex education. Source of sex education in the study was necessary to know the dimensions and types of foundations these students have in sexual education, which in one way or the other, affected their approach and understanding of sexual harassment myths. 33.3% of the participants indicated that they learnt about sexual matters from their peers and other people around them, 22.2% indicated that they did from the parents and other relations, while 44.5% learnt from classroom and other public organized programs. Parents’ religiosity as it concerns the present study focused on the understanding of the relationship of the religious status of the parents and its impacts on the knowledge, attitude, and perception of sexual harassment among these students. 16.6% of the participants indicated that their parents are not religious, 55.5% indicated that their parents are moderately religious, while 27.7% indicated that their parents are extremely religious.

Sexual harassment scale indices were compiled to test the participants’ attitude towards acceptance of sexual harassment as normal on campus. From the findings, 16.6% of the respondents strongly disagreed to the acceptance of sexual harassment as normal on campus, 16.7% disagreed, 50% agreed to the acceptance of sexual harassment on campus as normal, while 16.7% strongly agreed. The finding here is further explained by other extraneous variables. The system as obtainable in southeast Nigeria has degenerated to accommodate many abnormalities to be normal due to lack of social justice awareness among the youth. For instance, the case of sexual harassment across the institutions of higher learning in southeast Nigeria are simply swept under the carpet for reasons such as saving the image of the institution, fear of victimization, the collaboration of the faculty members against the students as well as the issue of patriarchy, which has eventually made women to be ready to accept all manner of molestations as pleasantries (Okafor, 2020; Okafor et al., 2022).

Equally, the background of these students in most cases lacks opportunities for extant knowledge of sexual rights and sexual harassment, which makes it difficult to differentiate between the indices of sexual harassment and other behavioural abnormalities in their relationship with others. This is further explained by the following variable on the table, which is the perception of sexual harassment on campus. 11.1% strongly disagreed to sexual harassment as unharmful, 22.2% disagreed, 39% agreed to sexual harassment as unharmful, while 27.7% strongly agreed to sexual harassment as unharmful on campus. The finding shows the gradual acceptance of this problem as normal in the face of social injustice faced by the victims of sexual harassment on campus as is obtainable in southeast Nigeria. In any case, seeing the situation over the years and lacking the capacity to confront same in the social justice framework, the students seem to have adapted to seeing it as unharmful, especially as they can manage to graduate and leave the system after some time; they do not consider it as part of their wellbeing issues. As a matter of fact, more than 70% of the students have been sexually harassed on campus.

Meanwhile, on the issue of the blame apportioned to the victims of sexual harassment, the study was interested in understanding the prevalent of this as well as the dimensions of the sustaining factors. This was achieved by developing the concept in two levels of sexual harassment myths1&2.

While sexual harassment myth1 dealt with the overall perception of women as responsible for their being sexually harassed, sexual harassment myth2 dealt with the overall perception of reporting of sexual harassment by women as exaggeration. Over 70% of the respondents agreed as well as strongly agreed that women are responsible for their being sexually harassed by men through their indecent dressings and behaviours. Equally, 55% of the respondents believed that women do exaggerate their encounter with men as sexual harassment. Again, this showed the operant condition among the students, which is the spillover of structuration of the society out there through training and domestication of anti-gender equality behaviour and perception (Giddens, 1977).

The youth have been conditioned through traditional patriarchal system to belief that women in their perceived and socially defined condition are more or less the properties of men lacking freedom or whatsoever in their relationship with others especially with the men. The proportion of the participants (70%) who see sexual harassment as the fault of women, included the females themselves of which the training and adaptation has made them to accept that sexual harassment from men should be understood from women’s error and temptation. This is one of the pieces of evidence of lack of, and hindrances to social justice especially among the youth. While the fear and the erstwhile traditional patriarchal system dominant in the developing nations keep the vulnerable (women) in perpetual social injustice and fear, observing the same system becomes a hindrance to the aspiration and desire for social justice among the vulnerable.

The study cross examined the implication of sexual harassment myths 1&2, to consciousness towards social justice on campus. From the findings, there is a negative correlation between sexual harassment myth. and consciousness towards social justice (openly denouncing sexual harassment) (rho = -.099, **P = 0.01). In magnitude of the effect, the finding showed that sexual harassment myth. explains about 98% of consciousness towards social justice against sexual harassment on campus. Equally, there is a negative correlation between sexual harassment myth. and consciousness towards social justice (rho = -.047, *P = 0.05). This is translated to sexual harassment myth. explaining about 94% variance of consciousness towards social justice among the undergraduate students in southeast Nigerian institutions of higher learning. The finding indicated the huge gap created between the observations of sexual harassment and openly denouncing same. This revealed the extraneous factors in the earlier findings by Okafor et al, (2022), which revealed that majority of the study participants preferred to report sexual harassment to their friends and parents other than the appropriate authorities. By implication, there is gap between social justice aspiration and sexual harassment countering measures on campus (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2019; McGlynn, 2019).

From table 4 above, factors predicting gendered attitude towards sexual harassment myths were explained by 72.7% according to the model. From the P.value of the table, only religious affiliation appeared insignificant. However, other factors were either positively or negatively correlated with gendered attitude towards sexual harassment myths acceptance. Among other factors, gender, age, and source of sex education are positively correlated with gendered attitude towards sexual harassment myths acceptance among the students. Years of study, type of secondary school attended, sex education, parents’ religiosity, frequency of awareness of sexual relationship and harassment, consciousness towards social justice and preferred confidants to report sexual harassment experience were all negatively correlated with gendered attitude towards sexual harassment myths.

With 98.8% explanatory power over the included variables, the above model showed the relationship between consciousness towards social justice and other variables included in the model. Factors in the model such as age, religious affiliation, type of secondary school attended, and source of sex education were all positively related with consciousness towards social justice. However, gender, years in school, sex education, parents’ religiosity, frequency of awareness about sexual relationship and harassment, preferred confidant to report sexual harassment experience, sexual harassment myths 1 and 2 were all negatively correlated with consciousness for social justice.

Discussion of the Findings and Conclusion

Sexual harassment myths before now have been one of the hidden factors yet to be addressed in the search and fight against sexual harassment, sexual violence against women and social justice mostly in developing nations. While much attention has been given to sexual harassment in its generic appearance, Rape Myth Acceptance (Burt, 1980), Attitude Towards Rape (Field, 1978), Acceptance of Modern Myth about Sexual Aggression (Gerger et al., 2007), Alcohol and Sexual Consent (Rose Marie Ward et al. 2012), Sexual Harassment Myth Acceptance (Lonsway et al., 2008), Acceptance of Myths about Sexual Violence (Janos & Epinosa, 2015) and the more recent,Acceptance of Myths of Sexual Assault on University Campuses(Recalde-Esnoz, Héctor, & Gemma, 2021), sexual harassment myths categorized according to their other of perception and effects as well as in connection with social justice has not been empirically approached in developing nations such as southeast Nigeria, where the problem of sexual harassment is a hitch to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal-5&16 and the overall globalization of sexual health and social wellbeing of all citizens.

Sexual harassment and violence against women enshrouded in the sexual harassment antics, creates a platform for injustice against women, supported by both women and men in society. This is empowered by the unconscious incorporation of the youth into the patriarchal structure, which stealthily form a common collective consciousness among the youth and subsequently play out in their relationship with the opposite sex. Gender, age, and source of sex education are positively correlated with gendered attitude towards sexual harassment myths acceptance among the students. This finding showed the chronic problem of patriarchal structure against social justice in developing nations such as the southeast Nigeria. The youth grow into the system as a false collective consciousness, which they uphold in other settings outside the family and communal lives and, this shown in their age progression. According to the study by Arisukwu, Igbolekwu, Adebisi and Akindele (2021), youth among developing nations are cultured into social injustice against women including the women themselves. Equally, following the systematic family structures in developing nations, youth tend to learn gender inequality from home and perpetuate this as they progress in life (Arisukwu et al., 2021; Crooks, Peter, Dunlop, Kerry, & Exner-Cortens, 2018). Source of sex education among the students, which is more lenient on the family structure rather than verified sources, tend to be training the female folks into passivity sustained by patriarchal structure, while the males are empowered towards anti gender equality line as it applies to sexual harassment acceptance myths. In the study by Crittenden (2009) it is believed among the male participants that sexual harassment involving the female folks is majorly the fault of the female folks. In a further probe, the study discovered that the majority of the male participants were from the family background where sex education is offered with gender bias.

Consciousness towards social justice in relation to sexual harassment, which is displayed by publicly denouncing sexual harassment and reporting to the appropriate authorities for action (Harris & Linder, 2017), is a factor in understanding the sexual harassment myths among the undergraduate youth. From the findings, age, religious affiliation, type of secondary school attended, and source of sex education were all positively related with consciousness towards social justice among the students. In essence, much experience and observations encapsulated in age, plays a role in confronting sexual harassment acceptance myths among these students. Equally, religion, private and public secondary schools and verified sex education have grown to be countermeasure to injustice among the population. In affirming this, the study by Bondestam and Lundqvist (2020), Santelli et al. (2018) and Rouhparvar, Javadnoori, and Shahali (2022) revealed that verified sex education and pragmatic religious teachings offered a leap to social justice against sexual abuse and harassment.

Reporting sexual harassment incidence to the appropriate authorities, which is one of the ways of exercising social justice, seems to be difficult among the youth especially, the female undergraduate students in the institutions of higher learning in the southeast Nigeria according to the earlier findings by Okafor et al. (2022) however, the extraneous variable has been unraveled in this study. For instance, believing that sexual harassment involving women can be blame on the women’s indecent dressing and behaviour explained about 98% variance of the possibility of reporting sexual harassment incidence among the undergraduate students in this region. More importantly, this relationship is in the negative direction (rho = -.099, P = 0.01), indicating that the more the incidence of sexual harassment myth., the less the willingness to report sexual harassment incidence among the population. Of course, this is an impedance to the possibility of social justice as the system here stealthily corrupt the learning and moral commitment for social justice. This situation is also found in the relationship between reporting sexual harassment and sexual harassment myth., which explained about 94% variance of the sexually harassed reporting their experiences to the appropriate authorities among the students in the region. In any case, the finding of the study at this point showed the continuous threat to social justice in the case of sexual harassment against the female folks.

Community development equally is threatened here especially as it involves the SDGs-5&16 which champions inclusive and just society. While the higher institutions of learning in this part of the world is the model for the urban and rural communities within the region, whatever is promoted in the higher institution communities like sexual harassment myths is invariably injected into the rural and urban communities in the region. As a matter of fact, sexual harassment and rapes of different degrees have become an emerging social menace in the recent times among the rural and urban communities across Nigerian six geopolitical zones. By implication, the incidence of sexual harassment and the reifying factors among the students are in sum, anti-community development as the trajectory of community development in the developing nations such as Nigeria follows the dominant behavioural disposition in the communities of institutions of higher learning from where the youth draw inspiration and extend to their communities of origin. Based on the findings of the study, the study recommends that more studies be carried out in the areas of childhood experience and perception of sexual harassment myths as well as social justice and gender-based violence.

References

Ademiluka S. O. (2018). Patriarchy and Women Abuse: Perspectives from Ancient Israel and Africa. OTE, 31(2), 339-362. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621 /2018/v31n2a5.

Ajayi, C. E., Chantler, K., & Radford, L. (2022). The Role of Cultural Beliefs, Norms, and Practices in Nigerian Women’s Experiences of Sexual Abuse and Violence. Violence Against Women, 28(2), 465–486. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012211000134

Arisukwu, O., Igbolekwu, C., Adebisi, T., & Akindele F. (2021). Perception of domestic violence among rural women in Kuje. Heliyon (2021) e06303.

Bondestam, F., & Lundqvist, M. (2020). Sexual harassment in higher education – a systematic review. European Journal of Higher Education, 10(4), 397- 419, DOI: 10.1080/21568235.2020.172983

Crooks, C. V., Jaffe, P., Dunlop, C., Kerry, A., & Exner-Cortens, D. (2019). Preventing Gender- Based Violence Among Adolescents and Young Adults: Lessons From 25 Years of Program Development and Evaluation. Violence Against Women, 25(1), 29–55.

Cusmano, D. (2018). Rape Culture Rooted in Patriarchy, Media Portrayal, and Victim Blaming. Writing Across the Curriculum. 30. https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/wac_prize/30

Giddens, A. (1977), Studies in Social and Political Theory. London: Hutchinson.

Giddens, A. (1979). Central Problem in Social Theory, London: Macmillan

Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Hagens, T. G. (2006). Conscience Collective or False Consciousness? Adorno’s Critique of Durkheim’s Sociology of Morals. Journal of Classical Sociology, 6(2), 215-237.

Hassan, K., & Mojtaba B. (2016). Distributive Justice and the Fundamental Human Rights (Focusing on Rights to Healthy Environment). Journal of Politics and Law, 9(7), 43-56.

Huhtanen, H. (2020). Gender Bias in Sexual Assault Response and Investigation. Part 1: Implicit Gender Bias. Geneva: End Violence Against Women International.

Li, D. (2018). Gender Equality Is the Path to Social Justice--Analysis from the Perspective of Gender. Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, 236(1), 16-21.

Madrid, A., Joanpere, M., de Botton, L., & Campdepadrós, R. (2020). Media Manipulation Against Social Justice Researchers: Second-Order Sexual Harassment. Qualitative Inquiry, 26(8–9), 983–988.

Marrott, D. (2019). Sexual Harassment, Justice Perceptions, and Social Identity: Cognition and Group Dynamics. Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations. 940. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd/940

McGlynn, C., & Westmarland, N. (2019). Kaleidoscopic Justice: Sexual Violence and Victim- Survivors’ Perceptions of Justice. Social & Legal Studies, 28(2), 179–201 DOI: 10.1177/0964663918761200

Okafor, O. (2020), Patriarchy and Women Plight in Africa: The Consequences of Living in Passivity. Bangladesh e-Journal of Sociology, 17(2), 57-74.

Okafor, S. O., Okoye, E. O., Onu J. C., Kekeocha-Christopher, I. C., Obiozor, E. E., Okechukwu, B.A., & Ogbonna, A. N. (2022). Sex-For-Marks Scandals in South-East Nigeria Institutions of Higher Learning, Female Students Victim and the War against Sexual Harassment. Italian Sociological Review, 12(1), 87-118. DOI: 10.13136/isr.v12i1.520

Palermo, T., Bleck, J., & Peterman, A. (2014). Tip of the Iceberg: Reporting and Gender-Based Violence in Developing Countries, American Journal of Epidemiology, 179(5), 602– 612. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwt295

Prakash, R. (2015). Concept of Social Justice. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2589869 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2589869

Recalde-Esnoz, I., Héctor, D. C., & Gemma, M. (2021). Sexual Assault Myths Acceptance in University Campus: Construction and Validation of a Scale. Social Sciences, 10(462). https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10120462

Rouhparvar, Z., Javadnoori, M., & Shahali, S. (2022). Parents’ approaches to sexuality education of their adolescent boys: a qualitative study in Ahvaz, Iran. Reprod Health, 19(69). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12978-022-01367-0

Santelli J. S., Grilo, S. A., Choo, T. H., Diaz G., Walsh, K., Wall, M., Hirsch, J. S., Wilson, P. A., Gilbert, L., Khan, S., & Mellins C. A. (2018). Does sex education before college protect students from sexual assault in college? PLoS One, 14,13(11), e0205951. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205951. PMID: 30427866; PMCID: PMC6235267

Santos, S. J., Garraio, J. Carvalho, A., & Amaral, I. (2021), A Space to Resist Rape Myths? Journalism, Patriarchy and Sexual Violence. European Journal of Women’s Studies, DOI: 10.1177/13505068211048465

Seema J. (2015). The Roots of Gender Inequality in Developing Countries. Annual Review of Economics, 7(1), 63-88.

Sikka, T. (2022). 4. #MeToo and the Case for Restorative Justice. In Sex, Consent and Justice: A New Feminist Framework. (pp. 78-97). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474479226-006

United Nations Women(2020a). Bridging the Gap: Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment (SEAH). New York: United Nations Women Press.

United Nations Women (2020b). Sexual Harassment in the Informal Economy: Farm Workers and Domestic Workers. New York: United Nations Women Press.

WHO (2015). Sexual health, human rights and the law. Geneva: WHO press.

Wortmann S. (2016). Collective Consciousness. In Ritzer. G. (Eds) The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. JohnWiley & Sons. DOI: 10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosc062.pub2.

IR