Legal practitioners have raised concerns that the recently amended Labour Act is silent on the protection of informal traders from sexual harassment in their line of work, as they constitute a bigger part of the economy.
This came out in a meeting held by Emthonjeni Women’s Forum (EWF) in Bulawayo, which was attended by media practitioners and members of civic society organizations.
The meeting sought to raise awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace and the importance of creating safe and inclusive work environments and to provide an in-depth understanding of the key provisions of the new Labour Amendment Act of Zimbabwe with regard to sexual harassment.
EWF is one of the many stakeholders who made contributions to the amendment of the legislation, especially on sections that speak to sexual harassment.
In a sideline interview with CITE, a human rights lawyer from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), Prisca Dube, said issues of sexual harassment need to be looked at even outside a formal business set-up of employer-employee relations.
She said informal traders are also exposed to sextortion (where sex is used as a currency to pay for corrupt activities) and sexual harassment.
“Sexual harassment and sextortion should not only govern employer-employee relations because we have become a highly informal economy. There are a lot of people in the informal sector. In as much as we appreciate the amendment to the Labor Act, we have left out a lot of people who are in the informal sector who cannot be regulated by the employer-employee regulations,” Dube said.
“We believe that the media is the fourth arm of the state. It is through the media that the public gets to hear the latest news and to enjoy their right to access to information. The media therefore needs to run at the forefront of awareness raising on the amendment of the Labor Act itself.”
She said the media further has a mandate to raise awareness on some of the regulations that are needed to enable victims to freely report cases of harassment in the workspace.
“Also, the media needs to highlight challenges faced by victims to report issues of sexual harassment and sextortion and maybe make recommendations looking around the world and best practices that exist internationally on what we can do to fix the things that are not working in Zimbabwe.”
Another lawyer from ZLHR, Sipho Moyo, highlighted that although the Amendment is welcome, it has some shortcomings that need to be addressed so that employees are fully protected in their workspace.
“The shortcoming to the Labor Amendment Act of 2023 there are issues to deal with the prosecution of employers who don’t ensure that the working environment is safe from harassment and violence. There are no provisions that specifically speak to holding the employers accountable when issues of sexual harassment occur,” he said.
“The act does not make it mandatory to have sexual harassment policies to prevent GBV, violence and harassment in the workplace. The government needs to enforce that it be mandatory for employers to have policies that will protect employees from harassment.”
