WOMEN across the Pacific deserve workplaces free from violence and harassment, says the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement as it launched a regional online video campaign calling for stronger protections for women workers.
The campaign, led by the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement in partnership with the Business Coalition for Women, Solomon Islands Planned Parenthood Association and the Vanuatu Human Rights Coalition, is urging Pacific governments to eliminate violence and harassment in the workplace.
FWRM executive director Nalini Singh said workplace sexual harassment continued to affect women’s safety and opportunities.
“Workplace sexual harassment and the lack of supportive policies have continued to undermine women’s well-being and opportunities at work,” Ms Singh said.
“Shocking statistics from around the region should be a constant reminder of the gaps that urgently need to be addressed to ensure decent work for everyone in the workplace.”
The initiative coincided with this month’s focus on workers’ rights and decent work and demanding the ratification and enforcement of the International Labour Organisation Convention No.190 on violence and harassment in the workplace.
Campaign figures showed 71 per cent of women surveyed in Papua New Guinea experienced workplace harassment or violence, while 66 per cent of women in Vanuatu reported sexual harassment.
In Fiji, one in five women workers in paid employment had experienced workplace sexual harassment.
Ms Singh said when governments, civil society, unions, and communities stand together, change would be possible.
“We cannot talk about economic empowerment or gender equality while our women are unsafe in the places they work.”
