By Muniratu Aweley Issah
Accra, July 6, GNA – The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has launched a workplace sexual Harassment (SH) Policy document for its secretariat and Trade Unions under the body.
The Policy document will serve as a code to help deal with issues of sexual harassment and gender violence at the workplace and appropriate actions to protect victims.
Speaking at the launch in Accra, Madam Teresa Nadia Abugah, Head of Social Protection and Occupational Safety and Health at the TUC said it was important to have a policy that would ensure a violence-free work environment.
“The Policy is very crucial because, you can hear a lot of violence and harassment cases in the communities, workplace and homes but perpetrators go unpunished. This is a very essential Policy that the TUC has developed after 75 or more years to help shape society.”
Ghana is yet to ratify the ILO Convention on workplace sexual harassment policy formulated in 2019 – Convention 190- where countries are expected to replicate that convention to protect the citizenry at the workplace and society at large.
Madam Abugah, however, expressed concern that Ghana was yet to ratify that Convention to protect workplaces and society at large.
According to her, the Convention when ratified, would become a law that would put measures in place to protect Ghanaians from sexual harassment and violence.
She was hopeful that Parliament would ratify the Convention before it went on the rise.
Mr Joshua Ansah, Deputy Secretary General, who launched the Policy urged national Unions affiliated to the TUC to help promote, campaign and sensitize their members about the document.
He admonished members to accept the Policy as one of its national books and as vital information to be shared during district and regional councils.
Madam Alberta Laryea Djan, former Head, Gender, and Child Protection Department of the TUC, told the Ghana News Agency that a gender audit report in 2020, necessitated the need to have a sexual harassment policy for the secretariat of the TUC.
She said the Policy would encourage people to willingly report the incidence of sexual harassment and violence at the workplace.
Madam Djan stressed the need for Ghana to ratify the Convention to have a holistic national Policy because the ILO Convention had more information and instructions to protect victims, punish offenders as well as protect job seekers among many other benefits.
She said there was a need to protect everyone at the workplace and the TUC was determined to push the policy to “break the silence.”
“We know that a lot of people suffer some form of harassment but because there are no procedures to address these matters, they fall short and do not even report or talk about it at all,” she said.
GNA