"Hands off our buttocks" — medical students in Germany reported harassment

"Hands on our buttocks are inappropriate," medical students said from the stage about harassment during the German Congress of Doctors, Deutsche Welle reports❶❷.

"All five female members of our delegation have been harassed over the past three days," the delegation of the Federal Association of Medical Students of Germany (BVMD) said in a statement read from the stage on the last day of the German Congress of Doctors in Hanover.

The students told how other members of the event invited them to their hotel rooms or home, invited them to "take a walk," put their hands on their backs and buttocks, and also made inappropriate comments, including about "attractive appearance." Also, according to female students, male colleagues, male colleagues during the congress discussed with them only childbirth and breastfeeding, while with colleagues of their own sex they had discussions on professional topics.

"We do not want to present ourselves as separate cases, but we strive to point out a systemic problem and draw attention to it. 73.5 percent of female students face sexualized violence during their internship," the authors of the statement noted.

The speech of the students on the stage was met with stormy applause, notes the medical journal Deutsches Betzteblatt. The head of the Federal Medical Chamber of Germany Klaus Reinhardt said that sexualized violence, verbal or physical, fundamentally contradicts the values of the medical profession, and the topics of abuse of power and harassment will be included in the list of the main ones at the congress of doctors next year.

❶Organization performing the functions of a foreign agent

❷An organization whose activities are deemed undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation