By Oosterom, M.; Huq, L.; Namuggala, V.; Nazneen, S.; Nankindu, P.; Sultan, M.; Sultana, A. and Azim, F.

There is a strong belief that employment is a crucial avenue for the empowerment of young women, through income, greater autonomy, and bargaining power within the family. However, experiences of workplace sexual harassment undermine these potential gains. This qualitative study among agro-processing factory workers and domestic workers in Uganda and Bangladesh demonstrates that sexual harassment is widespread in both formal and informal workplaces, while domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to its most severe forms. Women’s agency to challenge harassment is severely constrained by social and gender norms. Most find that the best possible strategy is to avoid and prevent physical forms of sexual harassment from happening. Language is essential for voicing and challenging sexual harassment, but the study shows that social and gender norms constrain young women in articulating transgressive and inappropriate behaviour by men. Many women hide detail, deliberately use euphemisms, and even lack a vocabulary to explain what happened to them, ultimately limiting opportunities for redressal. At the same time, formal institutions are failing young female workers. Local authorities in both countries reproduced prejudice about women ‘inviting’ sexual attention, whereas the police are generally distrusted because of corruption and the need for bribes. To tackle sexual harassment in the workplace, multipronged strategies are needed that target employers and government actors. The right policies and adequate safeguarding and reporting mechanisms need to be implemented, whereas programmes need to support women to help them gain the confidence to speak about sexual harassment and support (collective) action. Longer-term strategies need to address gender norms that condone sexual harassment.

Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2022. 84p.

Edited by Sundari Anitha and Ruth Lewis.

Policy, prevention and educational initiatives. “This collection comes in the midst of some promising and challenging times for activists, students and academics in the UK and beyond who have been researching and campaigning on the issue of gender based violence (GBV) in university communities. In the context of emerging research evidence and in the face of increasing public awareness of and media attention on this problem, these are indeed the first steps towards acknowledging and addressing it in countries including the UK and Australia.”

Policy Press (2018) 282p.

By Nicole Westmarland, Anna-Lena Almqvist, Linn Egeberg Holmgren, Sandy Ruxton, Stephen Robert Burrell and Custodio Delgado Valbuena.

Voices from Spain, Sweden and the UK. “Men’s violence against women and girls is a problem crossing all social groups. Globally, it constitutes a leading cause of the premature death of women and children, with its impacts ricocheting far into all communities (Westmarland, 2015). Many have argued that men must engage further in the movement to end violence against women. This book aims to develop an understanding of the factors that enable men to actively take a stance against men’s violence against women.”

Policy Press (2021) 160p.