Unsafe Environment: Sexual Harassment at Work

 

Leila, who lives in the Tehran suburb of Karaj, was sexually harassed and later raped by her employer. At the mercy of a justice system that not only fails to protect their rights as victims but also makes them even more vulnerable, her experience typifies why so many Iranian women are reluctant to report cases of harassment in the workplace.

“I didn't hesitate for a moment to file the complaint,” says Leila, who brought charges against her employer immediately after she was raped. But her employer told the court the relationship had been consensual, and the judge asked her to provide witnesses to the alleged rape. When she said that naturally there had been no witnesses to the assault, the judge told her to withdraw her complaint, adding that if she didn't, she would be flogged and forced to pay a fine for having extramarital sex (as a divorcee, she could not claim that her virginity had been violated).

“I felt insulted. I truly expected they would demand that I apologise to the rapist because he had been forced to rape me,” she says. “So I withdrew my complaint.”

Among the millions of Iranian women who work outside the home, many have faced sexual harassment at least once in their work environment, These experiences include: having to listen to sexually-explicit language and jokes; being directly insulted; being forced to tolerate inappropriate looks, unwanted advances and inappropriate compliments from male colleagues who make it obvious that they are assessing their female co-workers' sexual attractiveness; being asked repeatedly about their private lives; fielding requests to form relationships or meet male colleagues outside the workplace; phone harassment; enduring both unnecessary or inappropriate physical contact as well as explicit physical harassment; tolerating indirect or direct threats of dismissal after refusing to enter into sexual relationships with colleagues; and rape. In many work environments, male colleagues use harassment to threaten women, often insisting that if they agree to enter into sexual relationships with them they will be rewarded with promotions or pay rises.

 

No Legal Provisions

In Iran there are no legal provisions for dealing with sexual harassment or assault in the workplace. Article 5 of the “Policies Regarding the Employment of Women in the Islamic Republic,” passed in 1992 by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, states that “in recognising the role of women as one half of the population in social progress and economic development, it is incumbent upon executive institutions to provide for their employment and plan accordingly based on the priorities.”

When it comes to providing legal protection for women in the workplace, Iran ranks behind neighbouring Afghanistan. With assistance from the United Nations Development Programme, the Afghan government recently issued legal guidelines for preventing sexual harassment or any kind of discrimination against women in government agencies, specifying such acts as sexual harassment and punishable by law. There is no plan for similar guidelines in Iran.

“Sexual harassment in the workplace is different from other kinds of sexual harassment and needs its own appropriate rules and laws,” Shadi Sadr, a lawyer and women's rights activist, told Iranwire. “But in this regard, the only law that we have is the Article 82 of the Islamic Penal Code, which considers rape a crime punishable by death.”

Sadrs says that it is extremely difficult to prove accusations of rape. “When the accused knows that the punishment is death,” she says, “he will not easily confess, in the same way that someone would not commit rape in the presence of four righteous witnesses [required under Islamic law to prove an accusation]. Other harassments that do not rise to the level of rape have no legal remedy and the law in this regard is blind, unless the harassment becomes clear physical battery, which is then addressed under ordinary laws on battery.”

In the same way that Iranian criminal code does not recognise domestic violence as a distinct form of battery, Sadr says the law does not stipulate "sexual harassment" as an infraction and as such makes no provisions to protect victims. Generic laws enshrined in Iran's Islamic penal code make prosecuting sexual harassment and rape virtually impossible. “It doesn't make a difference whether somebody has been raped in the street or in a closed space or by an employer. Both types of rape would require proof of sufficient witnesses, which is of course very difficult.”

 

Switching Places

The lack of legal provisions, according to Sadr, frequently causes the accuser and the accused to switch places. “In the end, the female plaintiff cannot prove the rape, the perpetrator does not confess, and there are no witnesses. This is when the accuser becomes the accused: by filing such a complaint, the woman has in effect provided testimony against herself and has confessed to an illegitimate relationship. Here the woman must prove the forced nature of the affair; otherwise she herself becomes the target of the law. Unfortunately, our judges are all men and they view these cases as men would do. They do not understand the harsh experience of women who have been subjected to sexual harassment or rape.”

Sadr has handled numerous of these cases in Iran, and says that aggressors are often well aware of how the process of prosecuting can be turned against victims. “The aggressor often claims that the assaulted woman has entered the relationship of her own accord. The moment that such a claim is made – which is almost impossible to disprove – it enters the judicial process. When this happens, either the case is closed or is removed from the docket, or the court targets the plaintiff instead of the accused.”

“Perhaps you'd like to get fired?” asked the tormentor of a women called "Fariba" when he cornered her and she tried to refuse him. An employee of a reputable private firm, he told her, “You are divorced and second-hand, so stop putting on airs.”

“Sexual harassment is not only about inflicting psychological damage to sexually exploit women,” says Mehrdad Darvishpour, professor of sociology in Sweden. “It is also a way to impose power and abuse it to strengthen outmoded patterns of male dominance; a way to regenerate authority.”

Compared to more developed countries, he says, sexual harassment in societies like Iran is more widespread and often more violent. “Sexual deprivations, limitations, and prohibitions have made many men aggressive and violent to the level of sexual illness,” he says. “The low employment rate among women, their economic dependency on a world controlled by men and their weaker position in society has increased their vulnerability to sexual harassment.”

 

Establishing Authority by Harassment

“This type of violence has long been identified as a way for men to assert their power through sexual means,” Darvishpour says. “The more violent the work environment, the more common is rape. For example, the most violent types of rape happen in prisons, in the military and other institutions of power. Even in factories and hospitals, female workers may encounter open sexual harassment or assault, especially those women who work the night shift.”

On many occasions, he says, the women who have been violated are afraid to lose their jobs or reputation and, as a result, stay silent. Threatening women with defamation and damaging rumours is a common way of forcing them into sex or silence about harassment. “In many government offices, the relationship between the boss and the secretary is usually accompanied by sexual harassment and exploitation of women.”

In a country such as Sweden, Darvishpour asserts, even consensual relationships between a doctor and patient, teacher and student, or employer and employee, can lead to the dismissal of the one who has the higher social position or the one who is perceived to be more powerful. Society is actively seeking to confront sexual harassment against women in the workplace by educating the public about the many forms harassment can take, and ensuring that women and girls are well aware of their rights.

Sexual harassment in the workplace is a result of mental disorders, according to Alamnaz Hassan Zadeh, a clinical psychologist. “Sexual harassment everywhere and in the workplace is a result of sexual deviations and is a mental disorder that must be treated,” she says. “Sexual harassment, including ogling, nude exhibitionism or groping, is basically a kind of sexual deviation which is not limited to the workplace or, in some cases, even to women.”

“A patient of mine,” she recounts, “told me that he was aroused by the stockings of his female colleagues. He had been warned many times but had claimed that he could control himself. Such a person has a sexual disorder and should request counseling. Psychoanalysis is useful to him and can help discover the real roots of his problem. Sometimes treatment with medicine is prescribed. This disorder is called fetishism. In this deviation, the person drives sexual enjoyment from objects such as high heels or stockings. As a rule, the person who suffers from this disorder needs the object to get sexually aroused and so would not get excited if the object of his deviant obsession is absent.”

She also cites frotteurism, rubbing oneself against a non-consenting person for sexual enjoyment, as a deviancy that occurs frequently in the workplace: “This deviant behaviour consists of enjoying physical contact by rubbing one’s hand or one’s body against a person without that person’s consent.”