WORKPLACE SEXUAL HARASSMENT: A STUDY OF FEMALE NURSES FROM HEALTHCARE INSTITUTES OF LAHORE, PAKISTAN.
Keywords:
Workplace Sexual Harassment, Gender Equality, Women Empowerment, Women Workforce, Female Nursing StaffAbstract
Workplace sexual harassment of women is an imperative aspect and one of the most challenging impediments in the process of gender equality and women empowerment globally. Today’s women proved themselves through more productive roles and claimed equal collective rights along with better access to resources, acceptance, security, and self-respect in their families, communities, and workplaces. The increasing involvement of women in the workforce increases the incidents of sexual harassment at the workplace and become the largest hindrance towards women psycho-social and economic empowerment. To understand the actual situation this descriptive study was carried out with the female nursing staff in various public hospitals of Lahore. A structured self-administered questionnaire was utilized to collect primary data through multistage simple random sampling methods. Various univariate, bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses were applied through SPSS-21 for comprehensive understanding and coherent discussion. The findings reveled that a huge proportion of the study population faces sexual harassment in the workplace. Male staff especially doctors and male nurses were found to be the most common perpetrators of sexual harassment against female nurses. The participants reported that sexual harassment in the workplace is a serious problem that significantly impacts the social, psychological, physical, and economic condition and productivity of female nurses.
References
Abbas, J., Aqeel, M., Ling, J., Ziapour, A., Raza, M. A., & Rehna, T. (2023). Exploring the relationship between intimate partner abuses, resilience, psychological, and physical health problems in Pakistani married couples: a perspective from the collectivistic culture. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 38(3), 431-460. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681994.2020.1851673
Dionisi AM, Barling J, Dupré KE. (2021) Revisiting the comparative outcomes of workplace aggression and sexual harassment. J Occup Health Psychol ;17(4):398–408. from: http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/a0029883 pmid:23066693
Davis, H., Lawrence, S., Wilson, E., Sweeting, F., & Poate-Joyner, A. (2023). ‘No one likes a grass’ Female police officers’ experience of workplace sexual harassment: A qualitative study. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 25(2), 183-195. https://doi.org/10.1177/14613557231157185
Ghosh, A. (2021). Recognising invisible work, the women domestic workers movement in Bangladesh. Asian Journal of Women's Studies, 27(3), 384–405. https://doi.org/10.1080/12259276.2021.1965365
Hendrikx LJ, Williamson V, Murphy D (2021) Adversity during military service: the impact of military sexual trauma, emotional bullying and physical assault on the mental health and well-being of women veterans. BMJ Military Health: 6. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjmilitary-2021-001948.
Jamil, Sadia (2023) "The growing norm of sexual harassment in Pakistan’s mainstream and ethnic news media" Media Asia (2023): 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/01296612.2023.2180199
Kabeer, N. (2021). Gender equality, inclusive growth, and labour markets. In K. Grantham, G. Dowie & A. Haan (Eds.), Women's economic empowerment: Insights from Africa and South Asia (pp. 13–48). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003141938-3
Kessler AM, Kennair LEO, Grøntvedt TV(2021) Perception of workplace social-sexual behavior as sexual harassment post #MeToo in Scandinavia. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 62(6): 846–857. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12763.
Lima, P. V. C., Rodrigues, M. T. P., Mascarenhas, M. D. M., Gomes, K. R. O., Miranda, C. E. S. & Frota, K. M. G. (2020). Prevalence and factors associated with violence against high school teachers in Teresina, Piauí, 2016: A cross-sectional study. Epidemiologia e Serviços de Saúde, 29(1), e2019159. https://doi.org/10.5123/S1679-49742020000100022
Mazumder, H., & Pokharel, B. (2019) Sexual violence on public transportation: A threat to women's mobility in Bangladesh. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 28(8) 1017–1019. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2018.1491487
Nazneen, S., & Huq, L. (2023) Domestic workers' agency against workplace sexual harassment: The role of social norms in Bangladesh. Development Policy Review, e12702. https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12702
Naveed, R. T., Kalvra, S., Talukder, A., Laterra, A., Nunna, T. T., Parvin, K., & Al Mamun, M. (2022). An exploration of social norms that restrict girls' sexuality and facilitate child marriage in Bangladesh to inform policies and programs. Journal of Adolescent Health, 70(3S), S17eS21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.12.002
Nasim, A. ., Nadim, M. ., Aslam, A. ., & Ali, R. (2023). Nurses’ Experiences of Sexual Harassment by Patients at Punjab Institute of Mental Health, Lahore, Pakistan: A Qualitative Study. Review of Applied Management and Social Sciences, 6(2), 269-274. https://doi.org/10.47067/ramss.v6i2.321
Oosterom, M., Huq, L., Namuggala, V. Nazneen, S., Nankindu, P., Sultan, M., Sultana, A., & Azim, F. (2022). The gendered price of precarity: Challenging workplace sexual harassment (IDS Research Report No. 88). Institute of Development Studies. htpps://https://doi.org/10.19088/IDS.2022.030
Russell SS, Spitzmüller C, Lin LF, Stanton JM, Smith PC, Ironson GH (2019) Shorter can Also be Better: The Abridged Job in General Scale. Educ Psychol Meas;64(5):878–93. from: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0013164404264841
Smidt, A. M., Adams-Clark, A. A., & Freyd, J. J. (2023). Institutional courage buffers against institutional betrayal, protects employee health, and fosters organizational commitment following workplace sexual harassment. Plos one, 18(1), e0278830. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278830
Smidt AM, Rosenthal MN, Smith CP, Freyd JJ. Out and in Harm’s Way (2019) Sexual Minority Students’ Psychological and Physical Health after Institutional Betrayal and Sexual Assault. J Child Sex Abuse from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10538712.2019.1581867
Spencer RA, Young KM, Essaid AA, et al. (2021) Adapting and Validating the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire to Study Sexual Harassment Among University Women in Jordan. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 37: 19–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605211035880.
Sweeting F, Cole T, Hills P (2022) Is the blue wall of silence a fallacy in cases of police sexual misconduct? CrimRxiv. https://doi.org/10.21428/cb6ab371.6f9aeecd.
Sarwar, N. (2023), "Abuse of power influencing sexual harassment behaviour in Pakistani sports", Social Responsibility Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/SRJ-02-2023-0065
The British Psychological Society (2021) BPS Code of Human Research Ethics (pp. 4–41). The British Psychological Society. https://www.bps.org.uk/sites/bps.org.uk/files/Policy/Policy%20-%20Files/BPS%20Code%20of%20Human%20Research%20Ethics.pdf.
Unison (2020) Sexual harassment is a workplace issue. In UNISON: the public service union (p. 33). Unison, Unison Center. https://www.unison.org.uk/content/uploads/2020/02/25965-1.pdf.
UN Women (2021) Prevalence and reporting of sexual harassment in UK public spaces (pp. 10–166). APPG for UN Women. https://www.unwomenuk.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/APPG-UN-Women-Sexual-Harassment-Report_Updated.pdf.
Westmorland L, Conway S (2020) Police ethics and integrity: Keeping the “blue code” of silence. International Journal of Police Science & Management 22(4): 378–392. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461355720947762.
World Health Organization (2021) Violence against women prevalence estimates, 2018. Global, Regional and National Prevalence Estimates for Intimate Partner Violence Against Women and Global and Regional Prevalence Estimates for Non-Partner Sexual Violence Against Women 3–11. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240022256.

Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 PAKISTAN ISLAMICUS (An International Journal of Islamic & Social Sciences)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.