here is a video of our work you can see very touching commentary by how business schools are affected/transformed by working with women who have suffered from violence
Partnerships are key because when companies violence against women is a very complex and multidimensional problem that affects women across their lives, both in the professional and private sphere. To effectively tackle it businesses need to build very strong community partnerships with the community and this includes social services, protection, and ngos or associations providing victim support through therapy groups etc. Identifying holistic centers for victim care is very important to simplify processes for victims (for example we have in France Women Safe and the Maison des Femmes in St Denis that group together psychological, legal and medical services in order to best accompany women holistically in one place).
Have a look at this framework: https://www.unilever.com/Images/unw-global-safety-framework-final_tcm244-529439_en.pdf
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Have a look at this video - it explains very well how we are aiming to improve safety for women and girls in the tea sector: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx2bS8xnCvs&feature=youtu.be
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I am the Principal Consultant at Factive Consulting. I work globally on gender and GBV issues, mostly in the private sector and sometimes also in humanitarian contexts. Iām currently in Cameroon supporting IFC with gender due diligence for a large new hydro power project. Weāre exploring some innovative ways to bring the client and local NGOs together to respond to GBV risks and strengthen GBV support services. Next stop will be a GBV assessment in a garment factory in Jordan with 20,000+ employees. Over the next few months, I will be supporting the ILO with a gender assessment (womenās economic opportunities) in Rakhine in Myanmar, as well as managing their research project on absenteeism in garment factories in the country. I actually live in Canada, in a beautifully remote part of Nova Scotia, but donāt get to see much of home these days!
A1: Gender based violence covers a number of things. It can be sexual harassment in the workplace. It can be domestic violence that affects employees. It can be sexual exploitation in communities, where an employer might offer somebody something (e.g., a job) in exchange for sexual favors. All these issues, when they happen, affect employees and the business. They make the workplace an awful place to be in. They make it difficult or impossible to get to work. They affect how people (community members, potential skilled employees) see the business. The overall impact on business is not good. A bad reputation. Reduced performance. People spending time to deal with the impacts of GBV or support their colleagues, when they could be doing work.
GBV also prevents a business form achieving its goals of equal opportunities. If employees are experiencing GBV, they canāt make it to work or they canāt concentrate at work. They canāt give everything to their job. This makes it look like they arenāt capable, whereas they are actually having to deal with the impacts of the violence (attend the hospital, deal with trauma, worry about where the perpetrator is etc.). Equal opportunities means ensuring everybody has the same chance of succeeding. You donāt have the same chance if you are being sexually harassed by a work colleague or verbally harassed by taxi drivers every time you travel to work.
Hi Iām Laura Hawkesford, Head of Private Sector Engagement at CARE International. CARE is a global humanitarian and development agency working in more than 90 countries around the world to save lives, defeat poverty and achieve social justice. Women and girls are at the centre of everything we do, and we have a strong commitment to gender equality and womenās economic empowerment. We have set ourselves a target of supporting the economic empowerment of 30 million women by 2020. To achieve this target we focus on financial inclusion, dignified work, value chains and entrepreneurs. Knowing that violence against women and girls is one of the biggest barriers to gender equality, a key priority area of our dignified work programme is ending violence and harassment in the workplace. We learnt a lot about what works on a very practical level, across a range of different sectors and workplaces. Iām looking forward to sharing some of our learnings and hearing about the work of others in this area!
A1: CARE defines gender-based violence (GBV) as a harmful act or threat based on a personās sex or gender identity. It includes physical, sexual and psychological abuse, coercion, denial of liberty and economic deprivation, whether occurring in public or private spheres. GBV is rooted in unjust power relations, structures and social or cultural norms. While both men and women can be victims of GBV, women and girls are disproportionately affected ā and they are the focus of CAREās work on GBV.
A1: GBV remains one of the most tolerated violations of workersā human rights. It is shockingly common in workplaces around the world. In the garment factories of Asia, where CARE has many of its programmes, as many as one in 3 women workers report experiencing workplace sexual harassment. In addition to well-recognised major effects on the health and wellbeing of those subjected to sexual harassment, it also comes at a high cost to workplaces, including absenteeism (employees not coming to work); presenteeism (employees coming to work sick and/or having their productivity impacted); staff turnover (employees leaving their jobs); decreased productivity; decreased job satisfaction and staff morale. In Cambodia our research found that workplace harassment costs the garment sector US$89 million each year in lost productivity (see our 2017 report āI know I cannot quitā - The Prevalence and Productivity Cost of Sexual Harassment to the Cambodian Garment Industry ) .
Hi, Iām Diana Baird, Principal Social Development Specialist at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector funding arm of the World Bank Group, based in Washington DC.
For those who may not know about IFC, weāre the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. We work with more than 2,000 businesses worldwide, using our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities in the toughest areas of the world.
I have been at IFC for almost 20 years, and work globally across multiple sectors on social issues, supporting clients. The organizations IFC invests in need to commit to achieve our environmental and social Performance Standards. There are eight of them and they cover topics such as labor, environmental and social management systems, resource efficiency and resettlement. For my 20 years here, Iāve been working with clients to coach them on how to implement the Standards.
Very important Dean !
Ultimately we want to create a culture where everyone understands that there is zero tolerance towards sexist attitudes. This means that issues do not even have to go to HR and management because the culture is strong enough to stop it. For example one woman said that in her company when a man made an inappropriate remark following her presentation regarding her looks etc he was called out by all their other colleagues that were in the room and she felt safe. This means that every employee knows the values of the company culture and adopts them.
A1: One of the key cross-cutting themes of our Performance Standards is addressing gender risk. Over the past 2 years we have been developing with the help of a small team and consultants, tools, training and resources for Environmental and Social Specialists in my Department to enable them to assess the risk of GBV on our projects and to manage these risks.
Addressing GBV in projects can help businesses manage the reputational risks as well as costs to business in terms of absenteeism, turnover, efficiency and other impacts on production, aside from the fact that it is morally and ethically the right thing to do. In particular IFC is concerned with the impact its clients have on either their employees or the communities in which they operate.
Until recently, I was Head of Policy and Advocacy at CARE International UK, where I led CAREās global Womenās Economic Empowerment advocacy strategy focusing on financial inclusion and dignified work across multiple offices and regions. I also developed CAREās global campaign to end violence and harassment in the workplace. Iām now happy to be helping BFP with this challenge.
A1: Businesses that are interested in harnessing the potential of womenās economic empowerment (the trillions that could be added to the economy, the purchasing power etc etc) should be very concerned about how violence is a barrier - from a recruitment and critically a retention and graduation point of view. We have little chance of addressing things like the gender pay gap and lifting women out of the most exploitative forms of employment unless we tackle violence and harassment.
Iām Neta, the co-founder and CEO of Vault Platform. Vault is the next generation misconduct reporting solution at the workplace.
Our technology enables every employee to keep a safe ādiaryā, and when the time is right to report issues such as harassment and communication, employees can use our āgo togetherā function which allows them to come forward jointly, with more confidence and credibility.
HR gets to see the harmful patterns and act meaningfully on reports put forward.
This totally supports your work
āA 2018 report from the British Equality and Human Rights Commission points to the need for organizations to have an anonymous online reporting option. The commission found that thisācombined with strong anti-harassment policies and the construction of a civil workplace cultureāwas the best way to help improve the reporting process and reporting outcomes, particularly for workplace sexual harassment.ā
At Led By HER we have developed different formats to work with companies directly with women who have suffered from violence to support them on their entrepreneurship projects. This helps companies have their employees directly work on the question of violence and gender inequality. This can be a great way to promote awareness about the topic and change people through direct experience rather than simply through policy. The people we work with will then go back to their companies and be ambassadors that can share what they learned with their colleagues, etc creating a larger company-wide effect.
Really interesting Chiara - at Unilever we also look now on how to drive more holistic approaches to āEconomic Empowermentā- we speak about the Tripod of Rights - Skills - Opportunitie as a simple way to make this complex topic understood internally and share this with other businesses as well. Partnerships are core in all of this
1 out of 3 women has experienced sexual harassment at work. These women are now 6.5 times more likely to leave their jobs within the next 12 months (which is, by the way, a huge contributing factor to the gender pay gap).
Yet, only 25% of women who are experiencing harassment are reporting it at work.
A speaking-up culture must become an essential part of the solution! (And this is why we created Vault Platformā¦)
A1: Sexual harassment is not just a human rights issue, it is an economic one. In 2016, the global cost of violence against women was estimated by UNWomen to be USD$ 1.5 trillion, equivalent to 2% of the worldās gross domestic product (GDP). For more information about the cost of violence against women, see CAREās report Counting the cost: the price society pays for violence against women. CARE Australia also published a report about violence and harassment in the workplace specifically, focusing on Asia: This is not working: Stopping sexual harassment in workplaces across our region.