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by Jayanthi Liyanage

The idea of sexual harassment in the workplace is often shrouded in obscurity. And, more often than not, in an ominous silence, or dismissed in a sceptical shrug by those who refer to it as an "inability to adapt to the contemporary culture".

When it is talked about, it is much misperceived and misinterpreted and behaviour that constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace is made a mockery of. Very often, women themselves who have been at the butt end of covert and overt sexual overtures from their superiors, colleagues or subordinates in the course of their careers, have regarded such occupational hazards as a tacitly implied "code of work culture" and even seem to desire such propositions as an inevitable precursor to advancement in career.

"It's as old as the hills and it will be there till the end of time....It's natural chemistry between men and women working together....the vocabulary of sexual harassment will drive men and women apart and soon we will not be even able to talk to each other..." are some of the heated remarks one hears from employees, when talking about sexual harassment in the workplace.

For those who seem to hazily rate the workplace sexual overtures as a kind of ball game between men and women, leave alone recognising it as a misdeed, the reality may come as a surprise. Many do not know that sexual harassment is a criminal offence under the Sri Lankan law and a person found guilty of it will be either, imprisoned with or without hard labour up to five year; or, fined; or, imprisoned and fined; and ordered to pay compensation to the victim. Many do not even complain at a police station for the fear that one might be taken as a joke or the feeling that no redress is available. But what constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace is an issue which requires much probing.

Voluntary guidelines

Breaking through this veil of incomprehension, the Employers' Federation of Ceylon (EFC) in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO), launched on Tuesday, at the Colombo Plaza Hotel, a set of guidelines for employers in Sri Lanka, to devise a "Code of conduct and procedures to address sexual harassment in the workplace".

These voluntary guidelines come through a tripartite subcommittee composed of representatives from the government, the employers' organizations and the trade unions. It follows the inferences of a study done by Kamalini Wijethilake and Faizun Zackariya for ILO in 2001: that this offence is much more widely perpetrated in the work arena than we think; that awareness raising is more than timely; and that creative ways of addressing this problem need to be worked out by employers. Where legislation, by itself, fails to arrest the offence, a code of conduct to be followed at the workplace could go a longer way in achieving results.

"Sexual harassment is still an elusive concept for which we have no obvious definition," said Claudia Coenjaerts, Director, ILO-Sri Lanka at the launch which she described as courageous, pro-active and forward looking. "The police reports have sexual harassment in their categories for violence against women but the figures are very low. We don't have the numbers because the problem is not well understood, or acknowledged."

"Perceptions of sexual harassment vary between, but specially, within communities. Women have different views than men, also depending on their age and position in the job hierarchy. Common initial attitudes are that sexual harassment is "harmless flirting". Sexual harassment is not about sex, but about power. Why we do not hear about the problem is because society has not given it a proper place or a legitimate avenue to make complaints and be supported," Coenjaerts said.

Jyoti Tuladhar, senior specialist in gender and women worker issues, SRO, Delhi, mentioning that eleven case studies have been carried out in the Asian region on sexual harassment, said that in India there is a huge discussion as to whether there should be a new legislation or more operational guidelines to tackle the problem. "The South Asian experience is that legislation alone is not adequate and a code of conduct or guidelines are necessary."

Definition

The newly launched Code of Conduct defines sexual harassment as conduct which is unwelcome, unsolicited, unacceptable, unreasonable and offensive to the recipient, and of an overtly or covertly sexual nature affecting the dignity of women and men at work. The conduct includes that of superiors, colleagues and subordinates.

Unwelcome sexually determined behaviour is categorized as visuals of posters, graffiti, indecent exposure, sexual gestures, e-mail and voyerism; obscene and offensive language, lewd comments, sexual innuendoes, nuisance calls and correspondence, rumours, gossip and slander; pinching, touching squeezing, kissing and molesting; and demand or request for sexual favours, creating an intimidating, hostile or humiliating work environment for the recipient and conduct of a sexual nature which influences access to or continuation of employment, or employment related decisions.

The company is responsible to appoint a panel of three members, consisting representations from its human resource and legal departments and a two third membership of women, to address sexual harassment complaints coming within its purview.

The code recognises the right to work with dignity as a fundamental human right. A company is committed towards protecting the employees' right to dignity and the code is not meant to be a straitjacket but a guideline for a company to formulate its own code of conduct, and on doing so, it is bound to treat harassment in all forms as a disciplinary offense under the company's disciplinary procedure.

Employee well being

"Rather than looking at sexual harassment with the objective of eliminating discrimination, we should look at it from the broader sense of employee well-being, the morale of the work place, which is necessarily linked to the productivity and the gender image of the organisation," Gotabhaya Dissanayake, Director General, EFC, said. "Many employers within and outside EFC, which has a very large membership of companies, recognise the importance of keeping workplaces free of harassment, specially of sexual nature but do not have a policy or a code to address it and develop greater awareness of the issue.

Objectionable behaviour of any employer at any level can be addressed through this policy." The policy could provide an insight and a guideline to the policy makers and managements.

Though in an overwhelming number of cases, the victims are women, there are also cases of women harassing men and same-sex sexual harassment in the workplaces, said Mahinda Gammanpila, Secretary, Ministry of Employment and Labour. "A study I did find that the primary victims are younger women in their first jobs or women returning to the workplace after a career break."

Sexual harassment not only undermines the individual integrity of an employee but also damages the productivity objectives of a company. According to M.S. Mohideen, Administrative Secretary, Lanka Jathika Estate Workers Union, the Collective Agreement of the Employers Federation is now inclusive of a clause to counter sexual harassment. As Niroza Hussain of Uni Lever Ceylon Ltd. commented, "There is a difference of what is accepted and what is not accepted in behaviour. If one considers a relationship in the workplace as normal, then one cannot regard that as sexual harassment in the fall off of the relationship and make a complaint. What is acceptable to one person may not be acceptable to another."

Prof. Savitri Goonesekere of the University of Colombo lauded the move as an excellent idea. "It places employers on scrutiny to conform to standards and create a healthy working environment. When I was the Vice Chancellor, I introduced a code of conduct to address sexual harassment within the university but we had the problem of people being unwilling to come forward. Those who came forward faced various pressures and had to retreat. Criminalising sexual harassment is not enough.

Enforcement may be very difficult but if you have a code within the institutions, it could create an environment to guide employer-employee relationships."

Women's movement

Dr. Selvi Thiruchandran, Executive Director, Women's Research and Education Centre, extended her congratulations on the code of conduct which she felt was a long overdue document. "I also feel that the preamble of the code should have given due recognition to the efforts of the women's movement in Sri Lanka towards this end, through activism and academic theorism," she commented. "Without limiting the code to the corporate sector, it should be extended to cover all institutions, establishments, NGOs and the state sector.

The general principle of the code refers to sexual harassment as reflecting unequal power relations but I want to add that it is also because of indecency, cowardice and unhealthy patterns of behaviour of the employers."

She also felt that the panel empowered to tackle complaints in a company should have a minimum of five members, instead of three, with about three members coming from a women's organisation." Ubaya Dissanayake, Human Resources Director, Ceylon Tobacco Co. Ltd. (CTC), felt that the code could and should work, specially in a country like Sri Lanka where females in the majority, still needed to battle their second class status in society. "We fully support this endeavour. In fact, sexual harassment is covered by our company standing orders and the problem hardly arises in our working culture where we consider all the staff as one family," Dissanayake said.

"It is important that a company communicates the code to all its employees and it is inculcated in them to regard each other as equal human beings."

The code of conduct was augmented by the launch of a draft "Guidelines on gender for company policy" prepared by Ms. Maithri Wickramasinghe and Dr. Wijaya Jayatilake to Human Resource Managers of the EFC member companies. These initiatives could go a long way in minimising sexual harassment at workplace, if not eradicating it fully.

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