Workplace Harassment and Violence: A Call to Action
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Workplace Harassment & Violence: A Call to Action

  • 12/7/2017
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    'Sexual harassment is all around us. It follows us wherever we go and makes us feel unsafe in the places we should feel most secure. We see it everywhere and most often we see it at our workplace where we spend most of our day. Every day, in every country in the world, women and men are subjected to it. Many of them stay silent.​' said Israeli Ambassador Aviva Raz Shechter in her opening remarks of the "Workplace Harassment & Violence: A Call to Action" panel discussion held on 7 December 2017 at the Graduate Institute, Geneva. 

    The event organized by Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN, together with the Permanent Mission of Canada to the UN and the Gender Centre of the Graduate Institute, braught together outstanding experts to discuss the historic roots and the current development of this phenomenon, and most importantly the measures to be taken to end workplace harassment​ and violence.

      • Prof. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Vice-Chair of the CEDAW Committee
      • Prof. Nicole Bourbonnais, Assistant Professor of International History, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
      • Ms. Shauna Olney, Chief of the Gender, Equality, and Diversity Branch at ILO
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      • Moderator: Mr. Jan Dirk Herbermann, President of the Geneva Association of UN Correspondents

    WATCH
     
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  • CONTEXT

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    ​​Gender-based violence is a significant obstacle to women’s economic empowerment, autonomy and independence. At work, as in society, gender-based violence and harassment can take on multiple forms, which prevent women from fully enjoying and exercising their economic, social, political and cultural rights. Gender-based violence in the world of work is a manifestation of unequal power relations between women and men.

    From 25 November – the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women – to 10 December – Human Rights Day – we mark the “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign”. The campaign is a good time to galvanize action to end violence against women and girls, and at this event, we would like to focus the discussion on sexual harassment in the workplace. The timing could not be more appropriate. In the past several weeks, many cases of sexual harassment in the workplace, have come to light. The adoption of the new resolution on "Preventing and Eliminating Sexual Harassment in the Workplace” by the Commission on the Status of Women last March further compels us to have a  multi-stakeholder discussion on ways to eradicate this form of violence against women.