How to inspire inclusion and protect all workers from violence and harassment

By Beatrice Njeri and Isabella Mwangi

In March, we have been celebrating women’s month guided by the theme, “Inspire Inclusion”. This call encourages everyone to recognise the unique perspectives and contributions of women from all walks of life, including those from marginalised communities.

Women’s economic contributions have been greatly undervalued and limited by a multiplicity of factors. An example is the highly unrecognised contribution to the economy through unpaid care work. This was acknowledged through the Time Use Survey conducted by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics in 2023. The survey found that nationally, women spend approximately five times as much as men on unpaid domestic and care work, a situation that can perpetuate gender inequalities and hinder women’s empowerment. Yet, this contribution is not properly accounted for in the national economy.

Even when there is a salary paid to care work, this form of work remains highly undervalued, unrecognised, and unprotected, thereby exposing domestic workers, who are predominantly women, to multiple vulnerabilities and violations, thus impeding their contribution to the economy.

The Women Agenda has been identified as one of the enablers in the Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA), which is the current government’s flagship strategy to address the prevailing challenges in the country’s economy, to stimulate economic recovery and bolster resilience.

For full and effective realisation of BETA, and in the spirit of inclusion, we must look into and address the gender inequalities that impede women’s participation and contribution to the economy. One of these inequalities is violence and harassment in the workplace.

In 2019, the Centre for Global Women’s Leadership posted that 50 percent of women face the risk of sexual harassment, violence, and discrimination in the workplace in their lifetime. This calls for an evaluation of the adequacy of Kenya’s labour laws and social protection frameworks, and the extent to which they enhance or impede women’s participation in the world of work and therefore their contribution to economic growth.

In addition, the limited social and legal protections and poor implementation of laws and policies, has made it difficult to prevent and address violence and harassment at work.

There has been a global shift in the appreciation of where and how work happens, leading to a recognition of the “World of Work” in the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 190 and Recommendation 206, which present a comprehensive and effective standard of preventing all forms of violence and harassment in the World of Work.

The Convention considers all workers, in all their variations, whether in the informal or formal economy, whether paid, volunteers or jobseekers. It recognises the various forms of violence and harassment, and the disproportionate effect on women. It also provides that violence and harassment involving third parties, whether they are clients, customers, patients, or members of the public coming into a workplace, must be considered and addressed. Therefore, it is in the interest of all employers, public and private, to create a productive workplace and increase women’s labour force participation by ensuring a safe environment for their workers.

To create this safety and protection, the government needs to hasten its steps towards the ratification of ILO Convention C190 as it committed on Labour Day 2023, to institutionalise and strengthen frameworks to ensure equal recognition of women and the eradication of violence and harassment in the formal and informal economy. By this, the government will have made significant achievements towards the BETA agenda and fulfilling its constitutional mandate to protect and promote the human rights of all workers.

State obligations under ILO Convention No.190

1. To respect, promote, and realise the fundamental rights and principles at work.
2. To adopt laws, regulations, and policies on the right to equality and non-discrimination.
3. To take all appropriate measures to prevent violence and harassment
4. To adopt laws and regulations requiring employers to take appropriate steps commensurate with their degree of control to prevent violence and harassment in the World of Work.
5. To ensure that workers have the right to remove themselves from a work situation that presents an imminent and severe danger to life, health or safety due to violence and harassment.

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Both writers are project lawyers at the Centre for Rights, Education and Awareness (CREAW)