Garment workers travel on private buses organized by their factory in Cambodia. When women do overtime work but lack safe transportation back home, it can expose them to greater risks of sexual assault at night. Credit: Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch.

By Nisha Varia
NEW YORK, Oct 14 2019 (IPS)

If one dreamed up an ambitious global #metoo success story, it might involve governments around the world enthusiastically supporting legal norms and action on sexual harassment with active support and cooperation from businesses and workers.

Sound too good to be true? It is exactly what happened in June with the adoption of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention on Violence and Harassment. These new international standards could improve the world of work globally – and the next step is for countries to ratify and implement this landmark treaty.

Since September, media outlets have published countless reflections on the second anniversary of #MeToo going viral. Publications have collated useful timelines of high-profile cases and analyzed whether the movement has made a difference in workplaces around the world.

There have been many successes. The shift in public discourse, the newfound attention to an issue long normalized into invisibility, and the growing number of sexual violence survivors feeling empowered to speak up have shattered the status quo.

Resignations and prosecutions of those accused of abuse have taken place around the world, including Egypt, India, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Sweden, and the United States. There are new sexual harassment laws in 15 US states, and more legal resources for survivors who wish to come forward.

If the potential of #MeToo is to be fully realized on a global scale, governments must do their part to protect workers from sexual violence. Ratification of the Violence and Harassment Convention is a historic opportunity for countries to pledge their commitment to ending this scourge

But more change is needed. There has been backlash, for example through the use of defamation suits against those who turned to social media to make claims of abuse. In the past few weeks, Sandra Muller, whose tweet sparked France’s #metoo or #balancetonporc movement, was fined for defamation, and an Indian high court ordered Facebook and Instagram to reveal the identity of the person running an anonymous account sharing #metoo stories in India’s art world.

A 2018 World Bank report found that 59 out of 189 economies had no specific legal provisions covering sexual harassment in employment. And the ILO has found that existing laws often exclude the workers most exposed to violence, for example domestic workers, farmworkers, and those in precarious employment.

If the potential of #MeToo is to be fully realized on a global scale, governments must do their part to protect workers from sexual violence. Ratification of the Violence and Harassment Convention is a historic opportunity for countries to pledge their commitment to ending this scourge.

The treaty sets out minimum obligations for how governments should prevent and protect people from violence at work. This includes ensuring robust national laws against harassment and violence at work and prevention measures such as information campaigns. It also requires enforcement—such as inspections and investigations, and access to remedies for victims, including complaints mechanisms, whistleblower protections, and compensation.

Countries that ratify agree to align their national laws to the treaty’s standards and will be periodically reviewed for their compliance by the ILO.

The treaty is not limited to direct government action. It obliges governments to require employers to have workplace policies addressing violence and harassment, risk assessments, prevention measures, and training. Employers should take on these responsibilities whether their governments ratify the treaty or not.

Worker organizations had been pushing for the Violence and Harassment Convention for years, and the #MeToo social media explosion in October 2017 injected energy and urgency into the treaty negotiations that began in 2018 . Marie Clarke Walker, the lead negotiator for the workers, noted that it enabled her to push back against naysayers with, “You can’t say these things are not happening. It’s all over the media.”

There is reason to be excited. The treaty provides clear and specific guidance on an area of law that has remained murky and underdeveloped in many countries, just as the public is clamoring for reform.

Already, 10 countries–Argentina, Belgium, France, Iceland, Ireland, Namibia, Philippines, South Africa, Uganda, and Uruguay–have announced their intention to ratify the treaty without delay.

Global and national trade unions, such as the International Trade Union Confederation, and feminist groups, including the hallmark 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, are gearing up to push other countries to join them.

This treaty offers governments an unprecedented new tool—backed by the United Nations, trade unions, and many employers—to fight against the harassment and violence plaguing workers around the world. Ratifying and enforcing it as soon as possible is the right thing to do.

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Factory workers make sportswear for a U.S. brand at a maquila plant in El Salvador. Credit: Edgar Romero/IPS

By Nisha Varia
NEW YORK, Apr 30 2019 (IPS)

I have been working to protect the rights of women workers for 25 years, and whether I speak to domestic workers, election workers, farmers, or activists, their experience of sexual harassment and violence has been a common thread. The other commonality? The almost complete absence of redress in any of those cases, spanning Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the United States.

This May Day, workers around the world are continuing the fight to be free from sexual violence and harassment. From multiple allegations against MJ Akbar, a veteran journalist and senior politician in India, to pending legislation in Texas, the #MeToo and #Time’sUp movements continue to expose the ubiquity of sexual harassment and drive public debate, scrutiny of workplace protections, and legal reform.

Discriminatory social norms and major legal gaps enable sexual violence and harassment at the workplace. A 2018 World Bank report found that 59 out of 189 economies had no specific legal provisions providing protection from sexual harassment in employment.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) found that when laws do exist, they often exclude categories of workers most exposed to abuse, for example, domestic workers, and have an overly narrow definition of “workplace.”

In other cases, legislation imposes criminal penalties for the worst forms of violence, but neglects preventive measures or remedies for the wide spectrum of abuse that can make a workplace hostile.

Nisha Varia

When the #MeToo hashtag exploded in October 2017, Facebook reported more than 12 million posts, comments, and reactions in 24 hours. Since then, women and girls in countries including France, India, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and the United Kingdom have  come forward with personal stories.

Public attention has primarily focused on allegations against famous figures in politics and the media. But workers, activists, and donors have rallied around supporting workers out of the limelight, especially those in low-wage, women-dominated sectors where power dynamics can be especially distorted, sexual harassment may be rampant, and redress can feel—and be—out of reach.

This mobilization has spurred many businesses and governments to consider or introduce change. There is also an exciting initiative to create international legal standards on workplace violence and harassment.

In June, labor ministers and other government officials from countries around the world, national and international trade unions, and employers’ associations  will convene in Geneva to negotiate and finalize new standards on workplace harassment and violence.

Real change is within reach with the groundswell of public outrage and mobilization, media scrutiny, high-profile champions, potential alliances across diverse movements, and extensive evidence. If harnessed, these elements can translate into new international standards, ratifications, national law reform, implementation campaigns, and pressure on companies to adopt workplace policies to prevent and respond to harassment.

This tripartite process will hopefully conclude with the ILO adopting a “Convention Concerning the Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the World of Work”— a legally binding international treaty that will be  a powerful norm setter for countries that ratify it and even those that don’t.

The proposed treaty, and an accompanying, non-binding recommendation, would provide clear and specific guidance on the steps governments should take to protect workers from harassment and violence. It will integrate the role of anti-discrimination laws, labor laws, occupational safety and health laws, and other civil laws in protecting workers from sexual violence and harassment.

Civil laws can ensure prevention, monitoring, and remedies, to complement criminal law provisions that impose punishment for severe forms of workplace abuse.

The ILO negotiations are also thrashing out contentious issues that governments, workers, and businesses have grappled with at national and local levels, such as how a workplace is defined, who is a worker, what protection should look like, and how far responsibilities extend.

This includes the rights of workers in the informal sector, and the scope of employers’ responsibility, for example toward job-seekers and current employees  sexually harassed on their commutes. Another discussion has been what type of protections should be extended to domestic violence victims who might be stalked at work by their abuser or need time off to pursue legal redress.

Will yet another international treaty actually make a difference?

Not overnight.

But real change is within reach with the groundswell of public outrage and mobilization, media scrutiny, high-profile champions, potential alliances across diverse movements, and  extensive evidence.

If harnessed, these elements can translate into new international standards, ratifications, national law reform, implementation campaigns, and pressure on companies to adopt workplace policies to prevent and respond to harassment.

This type of change has happened before. Advocacy by domestic workers’ groups and labor unions around the 2011 ILO Domestic Workers Convention bolstered national campaigns and has helped spur reforms in dozens of countries—even among those that have not yet ratified the convention.

This has included new labor laws on domestic work in Argentina, Chile, Qatar, the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates, incremental reforms in Bahrain, India, and the United States, and collective bargaining agreements in Italy and Uruguay. While exploitation of domestic workers remains a widespread and entrenched problem, significant and groundbreaking advances have taken place in the past eight years.

This could be the year that longstanding women’s rights and labor rights activism, along with the energy of the #MeToo movement, translates into new rights for workers under international law and a major global push to enforce those rights. The ILO negotiations deserve the same attention and enthusiastic support as the brave survivors of abuse who continue to speak up all over the world.

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