Shamima Muslim, Convener of AWMA
Convener of the Alliance for Women in Media Africa (AWMA), Shamima Muslim, has said that most organizations are culprits when it comes to the low level of responsiveness to sexual harassment at workplaces.
She averred that due to the lack of attention given to sexual harassment policies at various institutions across the country, the act is not discouraged resulting in the perpetual abuse of victims.
The Broadcast Journalist was speaking at a Dialogue on the Workplace, an event organized by the Gender Centre for Empowering Development (GenCED).
Shamima Muslim explained that based on a research her outfit is working on, findings revealed that women who make formal complaints about sexual harassment at work experience negative consequences and less than half the time it stops.
According to Shamima, “This is because the workplace is the place where women and men interact for very long hours. So when a certain climate begin to emerge in terms of specific actions that constitutes the broad range of harassment, the victim is faced with unwelcomed sexual attention, which would include unwelcomed sexual comments, unwelcomed touch, the unnecessary demands for hugs, repeated request for dates.”
At the forum themed, “The Labour Laws and Women’s Rights at the Workplace”, Shamima stated that the extent to which an organization tolerates these kinds of conversations and actions determines how it becomes a norm.
“Once the actions become normalized, the culture becomes pervasive; it becomes part of the image of the organization.” She added.
She further indicated that although the research shows that women are the most affected victims when it comes to sexual harassment, there were also findings that men experience sexual harassments from male and female bosses.
“…And organizations do not recognize the negative effect of this culture. Because people are in it and are not complaining and may not want to resign, you think people are happy but they are not happy. Ultimately it affects the effective commitment of the individual in the organization.” She said.
The AWMA founder suggested that individuals must boldly raise issues about sexual harassment while recommending that employees train their staff on the things that constitute sexual harassment and encourage them to report on the issue.
Citing the newsroom (media) as a common ground for the pervasive act, “some of them actually have provisions against harassing colleagues in their organizational handout but it is often buried in a huge document and there is no emphasis laid on it but it is one of the most pervasive activity in the newsroom so it has to be singled out so people are being trained on it.”
