Inquiry Committee Members from public and private sector organisations, as well as civil society from ten different cities of Pakistan came together at Mehergarh: A Center for Learning to attend a three-day training to learn how to make their workplaces more dignified and effectively handle cases of sexual harassment. They had come all the way from Mirpurkhas, Jacobabad, Sukkur, Lodhran, Quetta, Multan, Lahore, Islamabad, DI Khan and Peshawar. This was yet training as a part of countrywide implementation of workplace harassment law.

Training participants represented organisations like Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority, National Rural Support Program, Balochistan Rural Support Program, Lok Virsa, Bedari, Lodhran Pilot Project and SPO. Progressive managements ensure that they provide a respectable work environment so that all their employees can focus on work. They get their relevant employees properly trained in the workplace harassment legislation for effective implementation within their organisations.

It was a comprehensive training, covering the issue of sexual harassment for conceptual clarity of the participants; procedures prescribed in the law for effective implementation and handling cases of sexual harassment in the absence of evidence and witnesses, which is usually the case. According to the law, they have to form a three-member Standing Inquiry Committee with at least one woman member to handle cases of sexual harassment so that both men and women can earn halal living in a respectful manner. -PR

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017