Fighting Workplace Violence and Harassment? Think OSH, ILO Says

Jasmin Malik Chua
·5 min read

One in five people experiences violence and harassment at work. Existing occupational safety and health—or OSH—frameworks are one of the “most direct entry points” for tackling the issue, a new International Labour Organization (ILO) study says.

The study cited previous research into the garment industry, which linked low organizational and managerial awareness of workplace dynamics and “misaligned” pay incentives and structures to an increased likelihood of sexual harassment. Garment workers who are paid piece-rate with production targets set by their line supervisors, for instance, report higher sexual harassment concerns. Factories where workers express a lack of trust and fair treatment are also more likely to incur the same.

More from Sourcing Journal

OSH frameworks centered around workplace cooperation and social dialogue, however, can create working environments free from violence and harassment, the analysis concluded. Across the 25 countries that the ILO studied, seven of them in-depth, including garment manufacturing hubs such as Bangladesh, El Salvador and Tunisia, roughly two-thirds of all legal provisions on workplace violence and harassment are listed within OSH legislation and regulations. Compared with other regulatory approaches, the United Nations agency said, OSH policies are more detailed in defining the responsibilities of employers and workers and outlining preventive strategies.

Still, countries can differ markedly in their approaches. While Bangladesh, for instance, has specific legal provisions on sexual harassment at work, they’re limited to workplace policies, training and complaint procedures and don’t include further provisions on OSH management systems. In El Salvador, OSH legislation flags violence and harassment as psychosocial risks, yet the provisions that manage them are “relatively broad and outcome-based,” the ILO said. OSH legislation in Tunisia doesn’t explicitly refer to violence and harassment, but it’s so “broadly formulated” that it can apply to the problem “in principle.”

Incidences of violence and harassment aren’t widely aired. A 2022 ILO survey found psychological violence and harassment to be the most prevalent form of the practice at work, affecting most of all young people, female migrant workers and wage-earning women, yet only half of victims worldwide had disclosed their experiences to someone else because they felt it was a waste of time or they feared for their reputations.

At the same time, being a target of violence and harassment can be debilitating, with those who experience it describing psychological distress reactions such as stress, anxiety, depression, burnout and poorer physical health. Organizationally, this can have a knock-on effect on absenteeism, turnover and productivity, along with team and group performance. One study in Australia estimated that workplace sexual harassment cost companies $2.6 billion in lost productivity and $600 million in deadweight losses and justice and health system costs in 2018 alone.

Violence and harassment can also escalate to rape and murder, something that happened to 20-year-old Tamil Nadu garment worker Jeyasre Kathirave, whose body was discovered in 2021 following complaints to co-workers and family that her supervisor had been sexually harassing her for months. The tragedy resulted in the groundbreaking Dindigul Agreement to Eliminate Gender-Based Violence and Harassment, a shared stakeholder agreement for monitoring and problem solving that has since been signed by Eastman Exports, owner of Kathirave’s then-employer, Natchi Apparels; H&M Group; Gap Inc.; and Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger parent PVH Corp. Labor campaigners say that the success of the worker-led model, which helped Natchi Apparels escape a Withhold Release Order on suspicion of forced labor, demonstrates that it should not only be expanded but also replicated.

Of the three countries, only El Salvador has ratified the ILO’s 2019 violence and harassment convention, though the organization later included a safe and healthy working environment among the fundamental rights covered in the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work in 2022.

The study called OSH a “key instrument” in an “inclusive, integrated and gender-responsive approach” to preventing and eliminating violence and harassment at work because it allows preventive action to be taken before specific problems manifest. An OSH framework, it added, has the benefit of facilitating social dialogue and participation, which can “mobilize all actors in the world of work toward a common objective.”

“To date, many of the legal and policy initiatives on V&H have been concentrated more on remedial action and legislation, and not so much on preventive frameworks,” the ILO said. “While punitive, restorative and compensatory legal provisions play an important role as part of an inclusive, integrated and gender-responsive approach and cannot be overlooked, prevention as a strategy allows the actors in the world of work to pay adequate attention to the deeper structural problems at play.”

Still, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, the study noted, and country-specific data gathering is important to help authorities and civil society identify developments and monitor, evaluate and improve legal or policy responses where necessary. Different factors can stymie progress even in countries with strong legal frameworks on violence and harassment, too, including a lack of resources for monitoring and enforcement.

“Consequently, the provision of more intricate and tailored information, alongside individualized support and consultation services for employers and workers, becomes increasingly vital,” the ILO said. “Moreover, given the ongoing changes in working conditions and the emergence of new psychosocial risks, effective legal and policy responses require continuous monitoring and evaluation, improvement and adaptation to accommodate these new developments.”