My Colleagues Preferred a Silent Victim

Sexual harassment at work is something women face the world over. But in Iran, where a culture of male impunity rules most public workplaces and legal recourse for women victims is TK, the challenges women face are both myriad and unique.

“Sometimes words are too inadequate to describe what I have been through,” says a woman I will call Setareh, who was systematically harassed at work for years. Her place of work was not a tiny underground workshop in some isolated suburb of Tehran, but a centrally located government ministry with tens of supervisors, inspectors and watchful eyes.

I knew of what she was going through back at the time, and reached out to her again for this story. At first, she refused to speak to me. Today she is married and four-months pregnant, and said she didn't want to be reminded of those days of anxiety and worry, days when she could not sleep at night out of fear and guilt. Shame because while her colleagues were resting in the safety of their homes, she had to get naked right in front of the altar of the office prayer room, before the presence of God, close her eyes and send her mind to a place far away from greedy hands that were exploring her body round and round.

Recalling those days still agitates her. “I have suffered all these years because of my past. Sometimes I ask myself why I gave in? Why didn’t I stood up?” she says. “Now I understand that poverty with all the sufferings that comes with it is better than living in the shadow of guilt and humiliation.”

Years have passed, but when we spoke she could not control her sobbing and weeping. The story that follows belongs to Setareh, as she recounted it to me, and it reflects the experiences of thousands of other women across Iran.

“It has been ten years. My family was in terrible financial straits. My parents, my five siblings and I were living in a cinder block house of 48 square meters in the Mohammad Abad village of Karaj, near Tehran. My father was the caretaker of a big orchard. When the season for fruit picking came around, we all helped him, but it was no use. Poverty had us beaten. Our whole house was one cement room divided into two parts by a curtain. My mother cooked on the other side of the curtain. When I say cooking, I mean she did something with onions and potatoes.

For a Better Life

“I was pretty and I studied hard. Even though we were very poor, I looked properly dressed and well-groomed. I had a winning disposition and a successful social life. I was accepted by the state university the same year that I received my high school diploma. Right then I decided to make a better life for my family and for myself. I was an elite student and a professor of mine who worked for the organization invited me to work there as well. For a while I worked as an intern and when I learned what the job required I started work half-time until I got my college degree. After a short while all departments wanted me to work for them. Since I showed a lot of enthusiasm and put in a lot of energy I thought that the managers wanted me to work for them because I was punctual and a hard worker. It didn't take long to figure out that I was popular because I was a pretty face.

“One day, folder in hand, I was waiting behind the door of the department head’s office to get his signature when I overheard his conversation with the middle manager of another department who said “send her over to me. She's a juicy morsel. I want to do her.” My own boss laughed and replied “What, do you think I'm impotent?” The problem was that my colleagues trusted my boss. He was well-mannered and a true gentlemanly person. His eldest son had just married and the whole ministry had enthusiastically participated in his wedding ceremony.

The Dominant Moral Code

“For a long time I thought about how to get out of that situation. I thought of many things. I thought of writing a letter of warning to the general director or even the minister. But they didn’t even know my name. They were bound to believe the word of a colleague whom they themselves had appointed over me. Every night I cried till morning. From the day after hearing those words I could feel the weight of the ogling and leering eyes of my boss. I felt that he was undressing me as he looked at me. I was nervous and felt unsafe. Every time I wanted to go to my room across the same hallway as his office, he found an excuse to come out and somehow touch me. He would rub against me and I felt revulsion. I still remember how he softly touched my hand with his thumb and forefinger when he wanted to give me a letter and I understood that those repeated touches were quite intentional and deliberate. But the only thing that I didn't contemplate was losing my job. The dominant moral code there was the lowest of the low and I was a nice and needy prey.

“In the afternoons he conjured up different excuses to appear in front of me and offer me a lift. I was certain that he was not doing me a favor as a colleague. How could he do me a favor when he would charge other colleagues tea money and would not even approve the expense of an extra cup of tea and an extra sugar cube for breakfast?

“The only thing that swayed me to stay in that environment was the thought of the money that I would receive at the end of the month, with which I could improve the lot of myself and my family. With that money I could pay for my education and my commute; I could buy my college textbooks and booklets.

“One day we were going to the funeral of a colleague’s father. In the car pool going to the funeral I ended up sitting next to my boss. All the way to the cemetery he pressed his leg against mine, even though we were the only two people in the back seat. I was distressed but didn’t dare to pull apart because I feared that the office driver would notice the situation. Shame and a sense of disgrace were suffocating me. I was afraid that I would lose my job if I resisted his advances.

“My silence only emboldened him. He insisted on keeping me after office hours in the afternoon. His body odor and behavior revolted me. I didn’t like the place anymore, but the fear of becoming unemployed had paralyzed me. I was terrified of not having any money. I was terrified that I could not even afford the minibus ride between Karaj and Tehran. Right when the harassment reached its peak, the arrival of a new prey diverted his eyes from me.

Punished By Colleagues

“A beautiful women had been placed in the office for a few months to audit the books. At the same time, the gossip started circulating that they wanted to hire an accountant and the new woman, who was recently divorced and had two children to take care of, was looking for a full-time job. One afternoon when I saw the new colleague and my boss driving away in the same car towards an unknown destination, I concluded that my silence was an injustice to all the women whose paths might cross that office because of need. It took me a few days to write a letter to the general director. I also enclosed his flagrant and amorous texts. I imagined that I had put an end to the harassment. What I didn’t know was that it was just the beginning of my ordeal.

“A few times my boss called me in for explanations and threatened to tell everybody that I had moral issues, that it was I who had started the relationship and that I had entrapped him. He even threatened to fire me, but in the end they transferred him to a better position in another government department. In other words, he was promoted.

“The story spread around. My colleagues started giving me meaningful looks. At lunch nobody would sit next to me. Everybody saw me as the accused, not as a victim. In their eyes I was a women who had showed him the ‘green light’. They had no doubt that I had destroyed the reputation of an upright and religious man. Male colleagues showed more sympathy with each other, and the female colleagues would not forgive me. They were constantly whispering close to each other’s ear. Perhaps they believed I should have suffered the harassment and kept my silence.

“Eventually one day his wife who had heard about the events came to the office in a frantic state. She cornered me in the hallways, showered me with every curse word that she could remember and left. I was left exactly what I had been guilty of. I had been harassed and when I had realized that my silence had been wrong and could hurt others, I had broken it and spoken out. I realized that now, it was the status quo that was not leaving me alone. My colleagues and the entire workplace, it was clear, would have preferred a silent victim.”