Violence Against Women at the Workplace

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AT THE WORKPLACE

Violence against women at the workplace is a major problem, though the statistical evidence is not well developed for many countries. This report aims at gaining a better insight into the extent to which working women are facing violence at work. The research focussed on the extent and characteristics of violence against women at the workplace and on the perpetrators of violence, notably bosses, co-workers or clients/patients/customers/pupils and similar. It focusses on women in the working age population (15-65 years of age), hence adolescent and adult women.

Our research focussed on sexual harassment and bullying at the workplace. It did neither cover domestic violence against women nor human trafficking and forced prostitution, because the causes and consequences of these phenomena are different from those of violence at the workplace, and so are the statistics. The research also does not include indirect violence against women, such as job insecurity due to flexibility of employment contracts. In addition, it will also not focus on gender-biased issues related to health and safety at work.

The research focussed on violence against women at the workplace in four countries: Honduras, Indonesia, Moldova, and Benin. Each country report starts with an overview concerning the female workforce in that country, followed by a description of the legal framework concerning violence at work. It then tries to provide an overview of the institutional responses to violence at work. Although data on the incidence of violence against women at work are mostly quite scarce, the research tries to estimate the frequencies of these types of violence in the countries at stake. Then, the reports provide anecdotal evidence of violence at work, and end with conclusions and recommendations.

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