Zimbabwe: - Gweru City Council- No to sexual violence via electronic means at the workplace

The project was mooted by the fact that the majority of women are not safe at their places of work. Women generally had proved to be victims of gender based violence at workplaces via electronic means such as telephones, text messages, mobile phones and emails. Male workers would usually be the perpetrators of such sexual violence. In general, women faced violence as forced prostitution, trafficking, early marriages, rape and psychological abuse.Women were at risk of physical, psychological and sexual violence at workplaces in most cases. Awareness to zero tolerance to gender based violence in the workplace was aimed by the project. There had been a decline in sexual harassment reports since the coming in of the new town clerk, who happened to be a female. Employees reported any form of sexual harassment indicating sexual favours, suggestive looks or gestures, passing of vulgar words and jokes, pressure for dating and touching sensitive body parts.The project sought to identify the magnitude, causatives and responses of women towards sexual violence over the telephones, emails, letters, text or WhatsApp messages. The aim would be to reduce sexual violence reports in the workplace to zero. Maximum support to employees who received obscene calls especially victims of sexual violence in the workplaces. The mostly targeted groups were the single ladies, separated/widowed and divorced women. The project focussed on training interns and employees on types of nuisance calls such as threatening, offensive or heavy breathing. Provision of voluntary counselling to victims of sexual violence via emails and electronic means employees was seen as a healing process to the victims. Awareness campaigns, workshops and sensitisation programmes proved vital for the eradication of gender based violence at workplaces.There were 280 (23%) direct women beneficiaries and 926 (77%) making it a total of 1 206 direct beneficiaries. There were 1 000 (45%) and 1 200 (55%) women and men indirect beneficiaries respectively making it a total of 2 200 indirect beneficiaries. There were 300 (60%) online women and 200 (40%) online men beneficiaries which had a total of 500 online beneficiaries. The gender specific allocation for the project was $20 000 and $10 000 for gender in mainstream projects. Some help was in kind and amounted to $20 000. The total budget was $50 000 towards the project. Musasa project donated resources used during the awareness campaigns. Departments and organisations such as the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Zimbabwe Women's Bureau and Palms of Care came up with awareness campaign materials, venues for workshops and all related materials for the success of the project.Weekly reports were forwarded to departmental heads and the gender focal persons. Monthly reports were also forwarded to partners. A review of periodic reports was done in the presence of the different subcommittees. Some questionnaires and interviews were done to gauge the magnitudes of sexual violence at the institution. Interviewees gave their responses on sexual harassment via electronic means. Questionnaires were also administered to beneficiary’s male and female workers on sexual violence using electronic means. The respondents believed that women suffer emotional violence and intimidation and that senior employers, male workers and junior male workers were the perpetrators.The questionnaires further revealed that after sexual abuse women became worried, felt ashamed, guilty and felt like crying. Some of the women responded by saying that they just ignored the incident and continued with their duties as if nothing had happened, some shared the experience with their close friends and family, some reported the incidents to senior managers and some reported the matter to the ZRP. Observational study revealed that there was an increase in the number of women workers who went for counselling sessions. Some female workers blamed themselves for being the cause of the violence. Some of the women lacked self esteem because they were women and that they were lowly ranked at the work place.Economic hardships forced the female employees not to report their bosses. Some female workers did not report the male perpetrators because they were scared of being fired by their male bosses. The other challenge was that if the female worker reported the perpetrator she might be denied some employee benefits at work. By that most female works reluctantly agreed to their male bosses’ sexual advances. Another challenge was that female employees might be forced to wear "sexy" outfits, or forcing a person to show off cleavage or to undress. Sometimes male bosses would get too close physically while working invading the social space of the female worker. The council’s lack of rules and regulations on sexual harassment via electronic means was a disadvantage to the female workers. Furthermore, most women lacked self defence and empowerment. The low self esteem of female workers resulted in males harassing and taking advantage of the female workers. Only few women worked in higher positions and most work environments were male dominated. Most local authorities had a patriarchal society where males were given preferential treatment even if they made mistakes. Perpetrators of sexual violence also lack the conscience expected of professionals and always got away unpunished. All the above challenges could be overcome through the use of awareness campaigns, advocacy meetings and staff development trainings.Betty Chamaona, a council employee and a widow, said, “The council has done well in engaging employees in the issues of gender based violence. This is of paramount importance in that they have managed to overcome stigma and discrimination, through advocacy meetings and networks of women employees in council. I suggest that any new ward, local, provincial and government forum that needs to tackle sexual harassment should consult the community. I have been empowered as a peer educator can now train other employees to come to terms with sexual violence issues at the workplace.”Men became very supportive as a result of council's work. There was an increase in the number of male workers respecting female workers. Gweru City Council trained both male and female workers on sexual violence. A group of council workers which was named Padare Men's Forum acknowledged that attitudes began to change in terms of respect within the workplace. Pastors of different church organisations also condemned sexual violence and discussed the topic during men or women's fellowships. The Pastors addressed the moral cancer of sexual violence as they had witnessed a high prevalence of divorce and murder cases mostly because of WhatsApp and text messages. Some people were then experienced health problems because of the messages they would have read on the electronic devices.  There was need for community education as well not only at workplaces.The City of Gweru held community-based seminars in Mkoba and Mtapa centres to increase knowledge and awareness on sexual violence. Some of these programmes were implemented by Musasa Project and they reported that few females were victims of extreme forms of sexual violence. Some female workers reported that they were not able to concentrate on their work after sexual violence because they felt "disgusted or disrespected". The awareness campaigns played a pivotal role by disseminating information to all the workers and the community at large.The project led Gweru City Council to draft a Sexual Harassment Policy which clearly stipulated on the actual use of company email and the internet prior to allowing employee access. The Sexual Harassment Policy targeted females single or divorced especially those with low education levels and females on short term contracts. The policy focused on ending workplace harassment in all forms. There was need for policy reform especially on issues to do with sexual violence via electronic means at the workplace. The government should develop effective intervention strategies to female workers, endorse and implement policies to do with sexual violence at the workplace. New policies on gender based violence should ensure that female workers were not sex objects and should not be abused all in the name of technology.The work could be sustained through support from nongovernmental organisations, government departments and other stakeholders. Improved work relations and openness at workplaces and in communities would help the sustenance of the project.The project could be cascaded to all levels of the communities through peer visits, workshops and seminars, exchange visits and invitations to summits which advocate for such causes.Providing special protection and facilities for night duty female workers could be another way of sustaining the project. Gender equality at workplaces and establishing of work friendly environments between male and female workers would work positively in sustaining the project. Victims had to be encouraged to report such acts of violence at the earliest possible time. Female workers should raise their voice against sexual violence. Counselling related to gender based violence should be regularly done at all levels. The provision of legal assistance to victims should be a priority. Local Authorities should formulate sexual harassment policy and implement it.The project could be sustainable as it was the responsibility of council to provide services to the community. It meant that a budget had to be set aside for projects of such kinds. By showcasing the project at the summit and others taking note of such best practices, it could then be replicated. The media could also take it further by publishing such projects.