(Female employees at Medical Legal Institute. Photo: Ali Al-Saadi )

One of the challenges that Iraqi women face in the work environment is sexual harassment and blackmail. In Iraq only two paths of action are available to women in such situations, one more difficult than the other: staying silent about it or leave work altogether.

Sexual harassment at the workplace is one of the illegal acts of sexual discrimination. Article 37 of Iraq’s labour law of 2015 defined sexual harassment as, “Any physical or verbal act of a sexual nature, or any other behaviour that is related to sex and targets the dignity of men and women, is unwanted, unjustifiable, or degrading to the person at the receiving end of it, leading to their rejection, refusal to be subject to that behaviour, or to a explicit or implicit decision that impacts their job.”

I have conducted a survey to explore the subject further. 595 participants from Iraq took part in the study, the largest age group of 19-30 year olds made up 68% of the participants, and about 67% of the participants were from Baghdad.

The results show that 80% of women have seen or heard about instances of sexual harassment at the workplace, while 42% of them were directly subject to sexual harassment, and 19% of them had to give in to it in order to obtain a job.

Article 10 of Iraq’s labour law prohibits, “Sexual harassment in hiring and contracting, whether it is during job search, vocational training, appointing, or anything related to the requirements or condition of the workplace.” Furthermore, “any other behaviour that leads to the creation of an intimidating, hostile, or degrading work environment for the receiving end is prohibited.”

Based on the results of the survey, about 98% of the women who were subject to sexual harassment did not sue their aggressors nor did they report it to their employers for fear of losing their job or exposure, which makes them subject to shame based on the cultural norms in Iraq. Consequently, this leads to a weakened position and diminishes the chances of them demanding their rights.

Although there are laws in place that address and aim to combat it, sexual harassment is one of the biggest obstacles facing women in the workplace, where many are subject to harassment by their supervisor or co-workers.

The rates of sexual harassment increase in the private sector compared to the public sector and reaches a level of 70%, and that is because there is less legal control in the former. Most organizations in the private sector do not have clear policies addressing the rights of employees and what to do when subject to sexual harassment.

About 83% of the women surveyed say that there are no specialized authorities that would protect them from harassment and there is a clear weakness in applying the relevant laws and regulations in the public and private sectors.

The major reason, however, why many women do not come out about sexual harassment is because they are not aware of their constitutional and legal rights with regards to women in the workplace. 45% of the women participating in the survey confirmed this. There are no non-profit organizations that are specialized in sexual harassment. With that said, there are attempts by some women’s rights organizations to support women in the workplace through issuing recommendations to decision-makers in the country in order to tighten laws and encourage women to be more open about this dangerous phenomenon.

On this regard, I contacted the Social Police Administration which was founded in 2016 and is part of the Ministry of Interior, in order to find out more information about the number of cases and processed complaints that are related to sexual harassment. Shockingly, one of the officials stated that to this date no case has been filed in regards to sexual harassment, pointing out that the reason behind this are the social traditions and the ignorance about the need to file a case. In response to another question about the existence of a hotline, he said that there is no such thing given the lack of support from the government and non-profit organizations that his division is receiving. Nevertheless, there is some cooperation with the International Migration Organization and a consultancy from Baghdad University, to design an app in the beginning of 2019 where help can be sought from.

The issue remains though: many women chose to remain silent because of a male-dominated society that finds excuses for many of the wrong doings conducted by men while encouraging women to remain silent and acquiescent towards men, with the pretext that a woman’s place is at home, that there is no need for them to work, and that women depending on themselves is only a foreign concept to the local social values.

After understanding more about the scale and seriousness of the issue, I recommend the following actions be taken by the government:

Enact harsher punishment for sexual harassment. Establish specialized institutions that combat sexual harassment. Establish a hotline for sexual harassment incidents reporting. Train professionals that are capable of listening to victims and suggest effective ways to deal with sexual harassment. Train public and private employees in order to make them aware of the policies and procedures that organizations should follow to combat sexual harassment. Design a new general policy about sexual harassment that should be applicable in both the private and public sectors. Expose and report sexual harassment incidents in the media.

On the other hand, civil society organizations need to participate in these efforts through the following:

Crafting awareness programs with the aim to support women. Designing action plans for awareness in schools and universities.

Religious and tribal authorities need to play their role by supporting the laws that protect women’s rights in general and their right to work, specifically.

Last but not least, the public and private sectors need to cooperate with civil society to combat this phenomenon and treat it with the seriousness it deserves.

In Iraq, everyone needs to work on making the workplace safe and create an environment in which the dignity of workers is preserved. The right to work in a safe environment is a human right that should be guaranteed to everyone.