After two years of negotiations, the International Labor Organization (ILO) passed its Convention on Violence and Harassment earlier this month—with governments, employers and trade unions adopting the global treaty in a groundbreaking vote.
439 votes were cast in favor of the treaty on June 21 from the body of 476 governments convening in Geneva. The governments who signed the binding treaty will now be required to develop national laws prohibiting workplace violence, establish preventative measures against such behavior, monitor the issue and provide access to remedies and measures to protect victims from retaliation.
Though steps need to continue to be taken as these governments must now adopt and enforce these laws, this is a monumental victory. The treaty has put the gendered nature of workplace violence and harassment at the forefront of the discussion—explicitly defining it as “a range of unacceptable behaviors and practices, or threats thereof, whether a single occurrence or repeated, that aim at, result in or are likely to result in physical, psychological, sexual or economic harm, and includes gender-based violence and harassment.”
In 2018, the World Health Organization estimated that two billion women have experienced workplace harassment. The sheer magnitude of the occurrence of workplace harassment put it at risk of being normalized; addressing the issue at this global scale creates a strong international standard to challenge that notion.
“This is the first time that a Convention and Recommendation on violence and harassment in the world of work have been adopted,” Manuela Tomei, Director of the ILO’s Workquality Department, explained in a statement. “We now have an agreed definition of violence and harassment. We know what needs to be done to prevent and address it, and by whom. We hope these new standards will lead us into the future of work we want to see.”
In the midst of the #MeToo movement, this landmark victory for women workers around the world is a powerful reminder that justice is possible—and that culture change is coming.
“This is the power of #MeToo,” Rothna Begum, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, declared via Twitter shortly after the vote, “and this day belongs to every brave woman that spoke about the abuse they have faced.”
