Laraib Nisar
Pakistan observes extremely low female labor force participation. One of the anticipated reasons behind women’s lagging behind in the economic domain happens to be the prevailing issue of workplace harassment. Harassment in the workplace is the most common form of gender-based violence happening in Pakistani society characterized by patriarchy and gender segregation. When women attempt to join workforce and take economic responsibilities of family in opposite to predominating social norms, they have to suffer several forms of harassment. Harassment in workplace is largely due to unequal power relationship among genders. Workplace nuisance occurs in almost all occupations and industries and makes working environment stressful, damaging, and hostile for women, thus making it difficult for them to achieve their rightful place in the employment sector.
Surprisingly, the issue of workplace harassment is not confined to the formal economic sector only, the informal sector witnesses the evil practice of workplace harassment even more. The harassment issues women face in the domestic sector at the domestic level are far more complex and deeply embedded in the system than the harassment issues women face in formal offices, firms, and industries. This shows that the culture of workplace harassment is deep rooted in the Pakistani society, and is normalized largely.
Unfortunately, women face harassment of numerous kinds at workplaces. The most common type of harassment at workplace is sexual harassment, women mostly face physical sexual harassment in the form of inappropriate touches, unwelcomed physical contact or suggestive body language, such as touching, patting, pinching, hugging, kissing, or brushing against an individual’s body along with physical coercion or pressure to engage in sexual activity or punishment for a refusal to respond or comply with sexual advances. Moreover, nonverbal sexual harassment is also common in the form of uninvited sexual innuendo, offers, sexual attention, or suggestive comments and signals, unsuitable humor about sex or gender-specific traits, sexual insults or offensive language directed at their sexuality, gender, gender identity, and other verbal, written, or electronic communications of a sexual nature.
Another significant type of workplace harassment is emotional harassment. Since workplaces in Pakistan aren’t women friendly, and patriarchy and gender-based discrimination are deeply rooted in our culture, most of our women face emotional violence as a normal event in their day to day lives. Women are emotionally harassed by devaluing their work, making them feel intellectually and physically weak to perform certain jobs e.g. Technology, Information and Networking related jobs, and outdoor jobs are not considered right for women, instigating feelings of insecurity and inferiority in them through hateful and bullying remarks, and social isolation of women. Since women are emotionally vulnerable, their confidence shatters after such incidents and they mostly quit their jobs as a consequence of such events.
Women’s economic pestering also stands as a major impediment in women’s economic participation. The intrinsic wage gaps, restricting access to financial services, paying lesser salaries for the same amount of work, and keeping them unaware of the financial services and grants available for them are the major issues that contribute to women’s harassment in the economic domain. Such problems are structural in nature as the whole system plays a role in perpetrating such practices.
It is important to resolve these issues as they impede women’s economic participation, not only by inculcating a fear of workplaces but also by making them feel insecure and unworthy of achieving financial independence. Moreover, such incidents trigger families to avert their women from going out and work, as the outside world isn’t safe for them. Although excellent legislation is present in Pakistan against workplace harassment and those found guilty of it, but the effective implementation of such laws is missing. It is high time, the government makes all out efforts to ensure the implementation of the already existing laws, and penalizes the guilty ones to stop this malign exercise. Moreover, we need to sensitize the nation about such issue, and normalize reporting such incidents without facing judgmental remarks and backlash from the society. Proper reporting of such incidents will significantly help in reducing their intensity and frequency. Another important step can be the sensitization of workplaces and inclusion of women in committees formed to look into incidents of workplace harassment, this can help in making women feel comfortable while expressing their grievances.
The author Laraib Nisar is a Defense and Strategic Studies’ graduate, working as a research associate at Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) Islamabad.
