Women have a huge role to play in the development of global economies; making sure they are free and safe to work will enhance their productivity and impact their overall contribution to their families and society as a whole. Unfortunately, a wide gender gap exists today, with women representing 38.8 percent of all participants in the global labor force in 2020. The wide gap between the two genders is driven by a lack of equal opportunity as well as a safe workplace for all women.
Available data shows that globally, the labour force participation rate for women is 49 percent compared to 75 percent for men. The wide gap between the two genders indicates that there is still a lot to be done to increase the employment rate of women across the globe at all levels of their career.
Once women are provided with equal employment opportunities, one of the biggest challenges that have to be tackled is workplace harassment and, in particular sexual harassment.
The latest statistics on sexual harassment are very worrying and shows the extent to which this problem is prevalent in workplaces. The i-Sight report revealed the following:
- Approximately 72 per cent of workplace sexual harassment victims do not report it.
- 81 per cent of women have experienced sexual harassment in their lifetime. Almost three-quarters were harassed by someone more senior in their organization.
- 98 per cent of companies have a corporate sexual harassment policy, but only 51 per cent implemented new policies or training in response to the #metoo movement.
Social Initiatives like the ‘Me too Movement’ helped bring awareness of how prevalent the problem of sexual harassment is in our world, however at the workplace, the onus lies on organizations in making sure that it is curtailed until it is completely extinct.
In response to this, EFS Group, under the leadership of Group CEO Mr Tariq Chauhan, hosted a women-only Open House for colleagues to speak out on a safer workplace environment in organizations and transparency for its people.
EFS is committed to having a safe workplace with zero tolerance for the problem. EFS encouraged all members with support and assurance of strict confidentiality whilst impressing upon them to be bold and speak out.