By Grace Q. Bryant
The Managing Editor of the Inquirer Newspaper, C. Winnie Saywah-Jimmy, has applauded the Ministry of Health for bringing to reality its Gender and Social Inclusion Unit (GSIU) in order to reduce if not eradicate harassments in the workplace.
Climaxing their observance of the International Women’s Day, the Gender Voices Forum yesterday launched the GSIU and as one of the presenters, Madam Saywah-Jimmy said when a strong clear policy with best practices is enforced, employees will have no reason to not abide by it, but if there is no guiding light for right and wrong, one is asking for chaos.
According to Madam Saywah-Jimmy who spoke on the topic, “Sexual harassment in the workplace,” at the Ministry of Health Conference Room, employees in some industries are at higher risk of workplace violence to include healthcare workers, peace officers, social services employees, teachers, educators, retail staff and public transit drivers not to leave out the media.
She explained how people who work at night in rural or remote areas or work alone also have an increased risk of physical harassment on the job but encouraged employees of the Ministry of Health and those in the health sector to see GSIU as an opportunity while the Gender Voices Forum seeks to ensure that all employees feel safe and supported.
“Train your employees on what harassment is, how to recognize it and how to report it. They might not know that a behavior could be considered harassment, sharing a list of acceptable and unacceptable conduct could discourage potential bad actors and encourage victims to report,” the Vice president of the Female Journalists Association urged the staff after cataloging the different kinds of workplace harassments.
She continued that the harasser exercises their power by bullying a victim who is lower on the office hierarchy and in most cases such harasser could be a supervisor or manager who victimizes their subordinates.
In her buttressing comments, the Executive Director of medica Liberia, Atty Yah Vailah Parwon admonished, “If you don’t have policy yet, create one. If you do have a safe workplace and or gender policy but it is out of date, update it and if you have a policy but no one cares or knows it exists, dust it off and enforce it.”
Giving the overview of the program, the Director of MOH-GSIU, Quitina Cooper-Davis, said sexual gender-based violence has permeated its way throughout the globe while the fight for women’s rights continue to be on the stage due to a patriarchal society.
According to her, customs and traditions continue to be key players against gender equality, social justice and equity even with Liberia being a part of the comity of nations that signed to many women’s rights treaties including the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
Madam Cooper-Davis explained that In July 2018, the Government of Liberia in collaboration with its UN and other partners in an effort of achieving gender equality and empowerment of women in all government institutions, Gender Focal Points (GFPs) were established and piloted in four public institutions in Liberia, namely Ministry of Finance Development Planning, Ministry of Gender and Children and Social Protection, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Internal Affairs with a mandate to incorporate GFPs in the Senior Management Team(SMT) of their various entities.
She added that the Gender and social Inclusion Unit is established in line with the National Gender policy, the Civil Service Reform Strategy and the Civil Service Agency requirements with coordination from the Gender Response Budget Planning of the Ministry of finance and Ministry of Gender.
She stated further that the awareness campaign and meeting unearthed that staff at the Ministry suffered all forms of violence and since the operation of the GSIU commenced, the unit has received, heard and mitigated major eight cases of various forms of violence including sexual harassment, physical, psychological, verbal and socio-economic violence. “The report from these visits also uncovered that most staff do not know what SGBV or workplace abuse is.”
She noted that staff expressed gladness for the establishment of the unit as they have been yearning for a safe place to report cases and they could not due to fear of losing the jobs, bullied or exorcized by their colleagues or those very perpetrators within the Ministry for which they continue to work in silence.
“This has caused the GSIU to accelerate awareness at all levels using meetings, pictorials, frontline and on spot messages to increase knowledge amongst staff on those virtues that constitutes sexual harassment and other forms of violence in the workplace as well as steps for reportage,” Director Cooper-Davis revealed.
She emphasized that the meeting intended to build staff confidence in the establishment and make them believe that they could trust the GSIU as a safe place to report whenever they are abuse and that their privacy would be respected and preserved.
The unit was establishing coordination with programmatic alignment while building ally-ship with the men at the MOH to champion the fight against all forms of violence against women in workplace particularly sexual harassment.