Sexual Harassment In Pakistan

Executive summary

Sexual Harassment is a topic of concern throughout the world. This study investigates various elements leading to sexual harassment experience of females at workplace The study was undertaken in a banking sector using sample of 250 females working in different branches of banks located in Lahore (Pakistan), drawn by employing three-stage sampling technique comprising stratified random sampling, random sampling and criterion sampling. Data was collected through survey questionnaire which was statistically tested and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results indicate that attractiveness, privacy in office setup and work ethics are significant predictors while organizational policy is marginally significant in aggravating or limiting the level of sexual harassment at the workplace, streets, colleges and universities.

Introduction

Sexual harassment involves unwanted or unwelcome behavior, which can offend, humiliate and intimidate a person while creating a hostile working environment.

Sexual harassment includes but is not limited to:

1. Making unwelcome sexual advances
2. Verbal harassment or abuse, verbal or written communication (it includes narration of sexual incidents, emailing or messaging or showing explicit sexual content in print or electronic form (SMS, Email, Screensavers, Posters, CDs etc)
3. Request for sexual favors (invitations for sex, requests for going out on dates)
4. Physical conduct (like touching, kissing, patting, pinching, physical assault like rape etc)
5. Sexually demeaning attitude (leering or staring at a person’s body)

Any of the above-mentioned acts is included in harassment, if it is unwelcome and is causing interference in work performance or creating a hostile working environment or the harasser attempts to punish the complainant for refusal to comply with his/her requests and makes sexual favors a condition of employment. It affects the overall psychological health of the victim as well as impedes the productivity of an organization. Victims are reported to suffer from anxiety, fear of humiliation, helplessness, and vulnerability. Most of them socially withdraw themselves. Besides, no organization can thrive in such an environment. Sexual harassment that consists of unwanted comments, gestures, honking, wolf-whistling, catcalling, exposure, following, persistent sexual advances, and touching by strangers in public areas. Sadly, it is a very common phenomenon in Pakistan, experienced by females irrespective of their age and dress. They are women and they are on the road; that is enough for them to be harassed. A majority of the women in Pakistan cover their body in a long, black robe called abaaya before leaving their house. Some find the reasoning in the teachings of Islam, which asks Muslim women to be modest in their dress. But some wear the abaaya to keep themselves safe from the prying eyes of street harassers.

Background

Ancient Rome

In ancient Rome, according to Bruce W. Frier and Thomas A.J. McGinn, what is now called sexual harassment was then any of accosting, stalking, and abducting. Accosting was harassment through attempted seduction or assaulting another’s chastity with smooth talk … contrary to good morals, which was more than the lesser offense of obscene speech, dirty jokes, and the like, foul language, and ‘clamor’, with the accosting of respectable young girls who, however, were dressed in slaves’ clothing being a lesser offense and the accosting of ‘women … dressed as prostitutes’ being an even lesser offense. Stalking was silently, persistently pursuing if it was contrary to good morals, because a pursuer’s ceaseless presence virtually ensures appreciable disrepute. Abducting an attendant, who was someone who follows someone else as a companion and could be a slave, was successfully forcing or persuading the attendant to leave the side of the intended target, but abducting while the woman has not been wearing respectable clothing was a lesser offense.

Objectives

The major objectives of sexual harassment include

• To aware the people about the meaning of sexual harassment
• To tell how people sexually harassed others.
• What measures should be taken to eliminate the harassment.

Significance of the study

The importance of this study is that it helps to call for urgent research into the prevalence, and effect of sexual harassment. It helps the effective people to respond to this and take step against it. In this report, sexual harassment is discussed in different perspectives, such as harassment in the streets, colleges, universities, and workplaces. This could be achieved probably with the use of community awareness, criminal system, educating the judiciary, the police as expected; the purpose of this study is to get the perceived cause of sexual harassment. The significance of this study is to reduce, the occurrence of sexual harassment. It is also for the avoidance of the negative effect like post traumatic stress disorder, untimely death that it may have on the victim which may reduced internal (Inner) motivation of an individual to carry out activities that could be beneficial to both the individual and the immediately society.

It is also essential to have a better stay in future when it comes to the issue of sexual act so that it is not harshly acted if legislative measure that are achievable are implemented most especially in our tertiary institution since these student shall serve as parents, leaders, rulers, teacher and like in future, to make all our students be equipped with good societal behavior through legislation enforcement in all standing tertiary institution.

Limitation of study

There is a limitation in getting the cause of the sexual harassment because, those sexual harassed were not old enough to say it out for the fear of the shame and some other reasons best known to them, these research work will only consider the perceived caused of sexual harassment the implication it has victim academic performance and the way out.

Explanation

Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates or embarrasses a person, and it is characteristically identified by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral reasonableness. In the legal sense, these are behaviors that appear to be disturbing, upsetting or threatening. They evolve from discriminatory grounds, and have an effect of nullifying or impairing a person from benefiting their rights. When these behaviors become repetitive, they are defined as bullying.

Types

Electronic

Electronic harassment, electromagnetic torture, or psychotropic torture is a conspiracy theory that government agents make use of electromagnetic radiation (such as the microwave auditory effect), radar, and surveillance techniques to transmit sounds and thoughts into people’s heads, affect people’s bodies, and harass people. Individuals who claim to experience this call themselves ‘targeted individuals’ (‘TIs’). They claim they are victims of gang stalking and many have joined support and advocacy groups. Multiple medical professionals have evaluated that these experiences are hallucinations; the result of delusional disorders or psychosis, the same sources from which arise religious delusions, accounts of alien abductions, and beliefs in visitations from dead relatives. It can be difficult to persuade people who experience them that their belief in an external influence is delusional.

Landlord

Landlord harassment is the willing creation, by a landlord or his agents, of conditions that are uncomfortable for one or more tenants in order to induce willing abandonment of a rental contract. Such a strategy is often sought because it avoids costly legal expenses and potential problems with eviction. This kind of activity is common in regions where rent control laws exist, but which do not allow the direct extension of rent-controlled prices from one tenancy to the subsequent tenancy, thus allowing landlords to set higher prices. Landlord harassment carries specific legal penalties in some jurisdictions, but enforcement can be very difficult or even impossible in many circumstances. However, when a crime is committed in the process and motives similar to those described above are subsequently proven in court, then those motives may be considered an aggravating factor in many jurisdictions, thus subjecting the offender(s) to a stiffer sentence.

Online

Harassment directs multiple repeating obscenities and derogatory comments at specific individuals focusing, for example, on the targets’ race, religion, gender, nationality, disability, or sexual orientation. This often occurs in chat rooms, through newsgroups, and by sending hate e-mail to interested parties. This may also include stealing photos of the victim and their families, doctoring these photos in offensive ways, and then posting them on social media with the aim of causing emotional distress (see cyberbullying, cyberstalking, hate crime, online predator, and stalking).

Workplace

Workplace harassment is the offensive, belittling or threatening behavior directed at an individual worker or a group of workers. Recently, matters of workplace harassment have gained interest among practitioners and researchers as it is becoming one of the most sensitive areas of effective workplace management. In some East Asian countries, it has attracted substantial attention from researchers and governments since the 1980s, because aggressive behaviors have become a significant source of work stress, as reported by employees. Under occupational health and safety laws around the world, workplace harassment and workplace bullying are identified as being core psychosocial hazards.

Laws

United States

Harassment, under the laws of the United States, is defined as any repeated or continuing uninvited contact that serves no useful purpose beyond creating alarm, annoyance, or emotional distress. In 1964, the United States Congress passed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act which prohibited discrimination at work on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin and sex. This later became the legal basis for early harassment law. The practice of developing workplace guidelines prohibiting harassment was pioneered in 1969, when the U.S. Department of Defense drafted a Human Goals Charter, establishing a policy of equal respect for both sexes. In Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986): the U.S. Supreme Court recognized harassment suits against employers for promoting a sexually hostile work environment. In 2006, President George W. Bush signed a law which prohibited the transmission of annoying messages over the Internet (aka spamming) without disclosing the sender’s true identity. An important standard in U.S. federal harassment law is that to be unlawful, the offending behavior either must be ‘severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive,’ or that enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment; e.g. if the employee is fired or threatened with firing upon reporting the conduct.

LAD

The LAD prohibits employers from discriminating in any job-related action, including recruitment, interviewing, hiring, promotions, discharge, compensation and the terms, conditions and privileges of employment on the basis of any of the law’s specified protected categories. These protected categories are race, creed, color, national origin, nationality, ancestry, age, sex (including pregnancy and sexual harassment), marital status, domestic partnership status, affection or sexual orientation, atypical hereditary cellular or blood trait, genetic information, liability for military service, or mental or physical disability, including HIV/AIDS and related illnesses. The LAD prohibits intentional discrimination based on any of these characteristics. Intentional discrimination may take the form of differential treatment or statements and conduct that reflect discriminatory animus or bias.

Canada

The Act applies throughout Canada, but only to federally regulated activities; each province and territory has its own anti-discrimination law that applies to activities that are not federally regulated. The Canadian Human Rights Act created the Canadian Human Rights Commission that investigates claims of discrimination as well as the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to judge the cases. Before a case can be brought to the Tribunal it must go through several stages of investigation and remediation by the Commission. After this process has been completed, if the parties are not satisfied, the case will go to the tribunal. If a complainant can show a valid case of discrimination the defendant can rebuke it by showing that their practice was for a justified reason. The process is generally known as the ‘Meiotic’ which is similar to the Oakes test justification in a Charter challenge.

Results and Discussions

Main area where sexual harassment is common is Lahore.

Conclusion

The conclusions are that the most affected area in Pakistan for sexual harassment is Lahore. There women are harassed in every sector like education, street, workplace etc. no one is safe there. Despite decades of attention, legal action, and advocacy, this analysis of data, research, and experience shows that sexual harassment remains a serious and pervasive problem across virtually all industry sectors and workplaces. We found that no sector remains untouched by sexual harassment, nor unaffected by its impacts: Sexual harassment damages the lives, health, financial independence, and opportunities of countless victims, and costs businesses not only in legal fees, but in lost productivity, morale, effectiveness, and talent. Sexual harassment is about the interplay of power and gender present in every sector of the economy at virtually every level. While the data clearly shows that across all sectors, women of lower status are the most common targets of sexual harassment by perpetrators who are typically men of higher status, sexual harassment is by no means limited to this dynamic. Men, particularly those who don’t conform to traditional masculine norms, and others seen as outsiders, like LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming people, are often targets and women can be harassers. A sexually harassing culture can become so normalized that no one recognizes it, or doesn’t object to it for fear of being labeled a troublemaker and losing employment or status in the workplace. And harassment can come sideways, from co-workers, or from third parties like clients, customers, or patients.

Recommendations

Here are some examples of sexual harassment in the workplace and information on how to handle it if you have been harassed at work.

• Sharing sexually inappropriate images or videos, such as pornography or salacious gifs, with co-workers
• Sending suggestive letters, notes, or emails
• Displaying inappropriate sexual images or posters in the workplace
• Telling lewd jokes, or sharing sexual anecdotes
• Making inappropriate sexual gestures
• Staring in a sexually suggestive or offensive manner, or whistling
• Making sexual comments about appearance, clothing, or body parts
• Inappropriate touching, including pinching, patting, rubbing, or purposefully brushing up against another person
• Asking sexual questions, such as inquiries about someone’s sexual history or their sexual orientation
• Making offensive comments about someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment#References
2. https://www.nap.edu/read/24994/chapter/4
3. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/examples-of-sexual-and-non-sexual-harassment-2060884
4. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/sexual-harassment
5. https://sfgov.org/dosw/new-recommendations-strengthening-sexual-harassment-prevention-and-response
6. https://www.newamerica.org/better-life-lab/reports/sexual-harassment-severe-and-pervasive-problem/conclusion/
7. https://www.nap.edu/read/24994/chapter/9#170
8. https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/sex-discrimination/projects/university-sexual-assault-and-sexual-harassment-project
9. http://emails.iproject.com.ng/education/an-investigation-into-the-causes-of-sexual-harrassment-among-tertiary-institution-students-in-nigeria/index.html
10. http://emails.iproject.com.ng/tags/sexual-harassment
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harassment_in_the_United_Kingdom
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Human_Rights_Act
13. https://www.academia.edu/17477633/Importance_of_Awareness_of_Sexual_Harassment_at_Workplace