Sexual harassment in workplace rife - report

MBABANE – More people are at risk of experiencing violence and sexual harassment in the workplace due to the absence of national programmes aimed at eliminating this form of abuse.

Findings that were conducted by labour law experts indicated gaps in the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act in the country. It said safety and health at workplaces related to all aspects of working life, from the quality and safety of the physical environment, to how workers felt about their working environment, and the organisation. Eswatini’s Constitution recognises and upholds workers’right to a safe workplace. The Occupational Safety and Health Act No.9 of 2001 provides for the safety and health of persons at work, including plant and machinery use.

Noteworthy, specific regulations and OSH procedures are under review to promote safer working conditions in various sectors. The Constitution provides a firm and progressive basis for engendering OSH legislation in the country. Consequently, some OSH legislation attempts to address gender issues in the workplace.

Despite efforts made at engendering OSH in legislation, it has been revealed that much is still needed to be done to ensure that the OSH legislation was sufficiently responsive to gender issues. Giving an overview of the labour market in the country, the labour experts, which included members of trade unions, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as well as employers in the private sector, highlighted that the Occupational Safety and Health Act needed to provide a broad basis for dealing with gender concerns, such as the ergonomic design of workstations and exposure to chemicals that could adversely affect expectant mothers and their unborn babies.

Above all, it was noted that there were no known national programmes aimed at eliminating violence and sexual harassment in the world of work in Eswatini. However, several private sector organisations, such as the Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC) and Inyatsi Construction Group Holding (Pty) Ltd, have in-house policies and programmes to tackle work-related violence and sexual harassment.

“And currently, there are no mechanisms aimed at addressing OSH issues in the informal sector, leaving these workers vulnerable to work-related health and safety risk factors,” the experts observed.

Gaps

Following the identified gaps in the OSH, the Swatini Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA) Communications Officer, Sakhile Shabangu, said if only government could declare gender-based violence (GBV) as a national emergency such gaps would not be existing in the national laws. She explained that organisations such as SWAGAA had strategies on GBV that would be implemented and declared.

Shabangu highlighted that the declaration would ensure that every sector would have laws and policies addressing the emergency.