Sexual Harassment

Mar 30, 2009 Editorial

The issue of violence against women has been firmly placed on the agenda of Guyana – not least by the gruesome cases that are sensationally reported daily in the press.

The Ministry of Human Services has launched an aggressive program of sensitisation and action that has pulled together many agencies and organizations to confront the problem, and appears willing to stay the course.

We applaud this effort but at the same time would like to point out that the issue of sexual harassment, which we consider to be a subset of violence against women, has not received the attention that it deserves.

In Guyana, sexual harassment is covered under the Prevention of Discrimination Act of 1997. The section is very cursory and simply states baldly, “‘Sexual harassment’ is defined … as unwanted conduct of a sexual nature in the workplace or in connection with the performance of work which is threatened or imposed as a condition of employment on the employee or which creates a hostile working environment for the employee.”

The law thus confines the offence to the workplace when in fact it can, and does, occur in any location. Schools, for instance, form a hotbed for sexual harassment of female students by teachers.

The law must obviously be broadened to include, as one jurisdiction phrases it, “unwelcome sexual advances, unsolicited requests for sexual favours or other unwanted verbal, visual or physical conduct of a sexual nature made against another person.”

But even with the limited ambit of our law, the problem is much more widespread than the reports indicate. Back in 2006, the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour reported that while, “the law prohibits discrimination based on gender, there was no legal protection against sexual harassment in the workplace.

Officials of the Women’s Leadership Institute (WLI), a collaborative effort between the government and the UNDP, asserted that sexual harassment was a significant problem. WLI reported that while the problem is widespread, victims were reluctant to make official reports due to fear of the associated stigma and a lack of confidence in the legal system to deliver justice promptly.” Nothing has changed for the better since then.

In a poor country such as Guyana, with a profusion of single mothers, maintaining a job is literally a matter of life and death and most females are very hesitant to report cases of sexual harassment. But the violations are not confined to the poor and include all stratum and ethnic groups.

Nor is the violation of the integrity of women through sexual harassment confined to any particular type of employment. One may want to believe that those who man (literally) our public bureaucracy, being public servants, would have a more enlightened perspective than their private counterparts on this matter.

The latter, after all, are acknowledged to be motivated by greed and avarice and other less laudable sentiments. But if the anecdotal evidence is to be believed, our governmental offices are seething sites of sexual harassment of female employees.

Most Guyanese men believe that sexual overtures are harmless but the reality is that it can precipitate both physical and emotional torment to the besieged women. The more serious the nature of the harassment, the more harm will be inflicted on these victims.

There is also the financial impact. Many women, aware of the proclivity for sexual harassment in male dominated institutions or professions, consciously or unconsciously avoid those occupations in favour of the female dominated ones – such as teaching – which are invariably lower paying.

As we editorialised in 2006, after the WLI Report: “Legislation to define and penalize sexual harassment should be explored with full consideration of Guyana ’s unique ethnic, social and cultural conventions. It should incorporate appropriate mechanisms for public education about what constitutes sexual harassment as well as grievance resolution measures.

Sexual harassment of females is a serious problem and many women in Guyana are tortured by it daily. It is clear that many do not understand their rights, much less how to deal with this problem. Women’s organisations and other stakeholders must take action now to intensify the fight against sexual harassment in all its ugly forms.” We hope that we do not have to repeat this plea again two years down the road.