“He said I looked nice while doing a slow scan of my body as I was standing next to my boss and senior colleague. He walked away and everyone kept smiling and conversing as if nothing ever happened.”
“Why does he always look at our chest when we talk to him?”
“I added him on social media like everyone else on my HR team as well as my company were doing. Next thing you know he’s repeatedly leaving inappropriate comments.”
These constitute a few of the omnipresent female experiences at companies in Pakistan.None of these experiences are of overt sexual nature and hence, the issue is usually concluded with a shrug or a chuckle.
“Men usually go like ‘we were just being friendly - we aren’t doing anything wrong’,” says Naz (first name protected on request), a senior manager who is also part of a sexual harassment committee at her organization.
“And women tend to ignore this because it’s across the society - you develop a resiliencemechanism.”
A HR manager Siddiqui (first name protected on request) speaks to her gender’s actions, “The thing is it’s not just men who contribute to it, it’s the women also. Women tend to trivialize these things. ‘So what if he touched you a little bit? It’s normal.”
Unequivocally Sexual Harassment
Subtle harassment is unfortunately a shared phenomenon amongst most women of allgenerations in Pakistan, so perhaps it is inevitable it becomes de-sensitized and hence - not of much perceived consequence. But the United Nations has a very clear definition that the stories shared above do in fact, constitute sexual harassment.
The UN’s definition for sexual harassment include but are not limited to:
- Unwanted sexual looks or gestures.
- Referring to an adult as a girl, hunk, doll, babe, or honey.
- Hanging around a person.
- Looking a person up and down (elevator eyes)
- Staring at someone
“Cases in multinationals might be fewer compared to other organizations [local/blue collar jobs] but they are there,” says Siddiqui. “It’s not a competition. Why minimize it? There are issues everywhere. Some are bigger and some smaller but there are all issues. Let call it as it is.”
Legislatively Slow
The first sexual harassment law in Pakistan was enacted only in 2010, and just three years ago the Parliament of Pakistan amended the definition to include that conduct does not have to be overtly sexual to be harassment. It also expanded the definition of workplaces to encompass both formal and informal settings.
“These laws exist but the thing with Pakistan is that the follow through of the law is not there,” says Siddiqui. “Because of that multinationals also treat these issues in a similar way. Some multinationals have a very hard stance because that’s something they inherit from their parent organization.
“However, a lot of organizations just have it on paper. They will have a committee - but they don’t actually deal with real substantial cases.”
Awareness is a pretty significant issue mainly because there is a multitude of people who are still to be convinced that subtle sexual harassment actually entails a form of harassment.
This translates into numerous multinationals implementing a shoddy and superficial array of policies because of their lack of understanding on the issue.
“When you talk about subtle a lot of women wont take it as a complaint,” says Naz. “Some will but most will take it in their stride.”
There is also a dismal general and appalling lack of awareness amongst victims about the issue as well as resources they have access to - within and outside the organization- in case the situation escalates.
Rite of Passage
Every respondent who has been included in the research for this article, almost identically said: “When I was a junior employee, my line manager [insert subtle sexual harassment]”.
They all felt they were powerless to address the issue at their initial stages of their career and as they advanced in the corporate hierarchy they learnt to assert themselves and establish boundaries.
“As you become more senior - you develop armor,” says Naz. “Earlier generations didn’t have the confidence as the girls today.
“At Company X there were instances where I actually had to change my style of speaking to men just to give them the hint that I was not going to allow them to speak to me a certain way,” says Siddiqui.
Retaliation and judgment
“Women are scared to voice it [subtle harassment] because of retaliation or fear of being judged or being ridiculed,” says Siddiqui “Because in a set up where sexual harassment is not given its due credit and it is not treated as a serious thing - if somebody does voice out any sort of serious concerns no matter how small or big, chances are that fingers will be pointed at the individual who actually speaks up regardless of whether she is a junior or senior employee.”
Tuning into Pakistani news, there are cases of women who did speak up but faced hostile work environments, or there were single mothers being threatened of being transferred to another city, cases of retaliation, cases being prolonged for years, pressure from the family itself and the overall attitude of a patriarchal society.
Naz talks about her experience on the committee where she points to the complexities ofproving the subtle sister of the issue at hand. How do you prove if someone is staring atyou? How do you prove is someone is too close to you?
She claims that overt cases are easier to prove and in some cases people misunderstandgestures. Terming it as sometimes being a “double-edged sword” , she cites cases wherepeople in a relationship use it for revenge.
Clearly apart from awareness, the legal set up need to be improved so that it is translates at the multinational levels.
Legislatively, the 2022 amendment has a very narrow focus, enforcement has significant room for improvement, and NGO’s need to more involved. Hopefully we will not have to wait another decade for an improvement.
“What we need to do is to give women more confidence,” says Naz, “Because unless women deal with it themselves, until they tackle it themselves and say whatever you’re doing is not acceptable to me, men will understand this kind of language generally. But if you are loud enough about it this can also take care of the issue.”
Siddiqui adds another dimension towards tackling the issue:
“Our mothers don’t teach their sons, our sisters don’t tell their brothers about it, fathers don’t talk to their daughters about it. I think if we want to protect our society every family needs to talk about it.”
Resources outside your organization
For more awareness or complaints, organizations include but are not limited to:
- FOSPAH
- Mehergarh
- Aurat Foundation
- Pakistan Women Lawyers’ Association (PWLA)
- Digital Rights Foundation (DRF)
The writer is an HR professional based in the USA