Law against sexual harassment of women demanded

Action Aid Pakistan Country Director Dr Fouzia Saeed has said the government must formulate legislation regarding sexual harassment faced by women at workplace, adding that this is a serious issue that needs action to safeguard rights of women. She was addressing a "Working Women Assembly" organised by the Alliance Against Sexual Harassment at workplace "Aasha" here on Wednesday. Aasha is the alliance of 11 NGOs working for the rights of women, especially at workplace for the last three years.
The main objective of the assembly is to address daily problems that are being faced by women at their workplaces. A large number of working women, students of different universities and activists from different NGOs attended the assembly.
The participants of the assembly said that sexual harassment becomes a problem and proper policies and laws were needed to be drafted.
Fouzia said that 265 private sector organisations had adopted "Code of conduct for gender justice", which was focussed to create a work environment free of intimidation and abuse for collective productivity and individual job satisfaction. All the private and government organisations must adopt and implement "Code of conduct for gender justice at the workplace," she demanded.
She said the sexual harassment at workplaces was now recognised as a labour and management issue and was prohibited by law in many countries, including Sri Lanka, India and Malaysia. That issue was merely acknowledged in Pakistan and the country had no clear-cut law regarding working women, she added.
She said that 58 percent nurses face sexual harassment in Pakistan by their co-workers, patients or relatives and young nurses were more vulnerable to it.
Dr Fouzia said that 91 percent domestic workers faced harassment, most domestic workers migrated from their villages in search of livelihood and life was more difficult for those women.
Fouzia said there was also large-scale prevalence of sexual harassment of women working in offices, adding around 93 percent women, both in private and government sectors, faced harassment from their senior colleagues.
Action Aid social activist, Aksa Khan said that human rights organisations like ILO, Action Aid Pakistan and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) having a strong interest in developing sexual harassment policies, should provide support, resources and training on the issue.
She also said that women must battle against the harasser by not letting him get away with it.
She suggested that international obligations, including CEDAW must be adopted as an effective tool to eradicate the menace and the government must take effective measures for curbing violence, discrimination and exploitation of women.