Harassment at work Place

The announcement by the minister for women's development that the government is preparing to legislate to protect women at work through the 'Protection for Women from Harassment Act' is excellent news. The law will include a code of conduct regarding unacceptable practices at the workplace. While the code has already been adopted by some 300 private organizations, it is still not widely known and degrees of success in enforcing it have varied. A key reason for this is the attitudes that lie behind harassment. While the problem is encountered everywhere in the world, the fact that few employers in Pakistan are willing to act on complaints and few supervisors ready to treat women making them with sympathy, compounds the situation for many victims. This is despite the fact that the problem is immensely widespread, according to research by organizations campaigning against harassment. Women factory labourers are among the most vulnerable, but abuse takes place almost everywhere and at all levels, in forms that are both subtle and overt. The fact that few are ready to condemn it is one reason why it is so often unchecked. In the average workplace, the problem is often dismissed as trivial or unworthy of attention. Indeed it is only recently that victims have started speaking out about their experiences. The perception that women make complaints of harassment as a means to target colleagues or bosses is also widespread, although in reality it has been found by those investigating the problem that there are very few cases of this nature. Despite this evidence, the previous government had failed to pass legislation against sexual harassment on the basis that it could be 'misused' by women.The efforts of the current government in this respect are noteworthy. The legislation, backed by necessary changes in the penal code, will initially be enforced within formal organizations. There are plans to then extend it further, into informal sectors, including domestic employment, where it is frighteningly frequent. The law will be significant not only because it will offer a mechanism to tackle harassment and provide legal cover to women confronting it, but also because it will focus attention on the crime that has remained shrouded in shadows in our society, bringing it out into the open and helping to expose those guilty of such offences against women working for or with them. The law, as such, is one that is urgently needed. We must hope it can be introduced quickly and implemented efficiently.