Abstract
Personal safety and fear of sexual harassment may discourage women from participating at work and in public life, limiting their life opportunities. The study proposed to determine personal safety and fear of sexual harassment among female garment workers in Bangladesh. This cross-sectional study was conducted among 201 female garment workers from Dhaka and Chittagong cities. Participants were selected using snowballing sampling techniques with the data collected by using anonymised questionnaires. The Pearson product–moment correlation and analysis of variance were employed using SPSS version 27.0. Results showed that 25% of the participants perceived that they were most likely to be sexually harassed by their manager and 25% never felt safe going to work. Age and the marital status of the participants were significantly associated with personal safety and fear of sexual harassment (p < 0.05). The correlation analysis found a significant positive correlation between personal safety and the fear of sexual harassment [r (201) = 0.85 **, p < 0.05], among the participants. A deep commitment from leadership with cooperation at all levels of the organisations is required to address these acts of violence and organisational conditions, rather than a form of unreflective compliance or a ‘gender-neutral’ approach that fails to recognise individual needs and maintain gender inequality.
Highlights
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defined sexual harassment as any unwelcome sexual behaviour or requests for sexual favours
Considering these, the present study aimed to investigate the fear of sexual harassment and personal safety issues of female garment workers
Fear of Sexual Crime Scale (FSCS) theory was developed by Gorman-Smith, Tolan, and for measuring the fear of being a victim of a violent crime in the home and/or neighbourhood, the impact of such fear, and steps taken to protect oneself from crime [24]
Summary
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defined sexual harassment as any unwelcome sexual behaviour or requests for sexual favours These include verbal or physical conduct, or any gesture of a sexual nature, behaviour construed as offensive or intimidating to the person concerned [1]. According to the High Court division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, sexual harassment is defined as some sexually suggestive comments or gestures conveyed directly or over the phone, sending an email in indecent means, watching indecently, and the use of some offensive slang languages such as “sundori” Farhan in his newspaper report claims that because of lack of awareness, the educational institutes and the workplaces of Bangladesh have not coped with the guidelines of the court [10]. Considering these, the present study aimed to investigate the fear of sexual harassment and personal safety issues of female garment workers
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