Normal view MARC view ISBD view

Addressing gender-based violence and harassment in a work health and safety framework Rachel Cox

By: Cox, Rachel.
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookSeries: ILO Working paper.Publisher: Geneva, Switzerland : International Labour Organization, 2024Description: electronic document (55 pages) ; PDF & HTML files.Subject(s): DOMESTIC VIOLENCE | ILO Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190) | INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE | PREVENTION | SAFETY | SEXUAL HARASSMENT | SEXUAL VIOLENCE | VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN | WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT | WORKPLACE | INTERNATIONAL | AUSTRALIA | BELGIUMOnline resources: Click here to access online In: ILO Working paper, no. 116, June 2024Summary: This report looks at the implications of addressing gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) under a work health and safety (WHS) framework. It describes the characteristics of gender-responsive WHS approaches to prevention of violence and harassment, in particular with respect to risk assessment and other WHS prevention mechanisms. Integration of rights and obligations under equality and non-discrimination legislation and WHS legislation are considered, specifically with respect to responses to GBVH within organizations and access to remedies for workers who have been harmed by such behaviour. Parallel prevention duties incumbent on organizations are also considered. The report concludes that addressing GBVH under a WHS framework allows for proactive, systematic, collective, inclusive and publicly enforceable approaches to prevention. As such, WHS regimes have the potential to offer the kind of progressive and transformational change needed to prevent GBVH at work and ensure that women’s and other people’s equality rights, as well as their health and safety, are respected. However, given historical and ongoing resistance to the idea that GBVH is a work-related risk, a legal obligation to conduct a gender-responsive risk assessment emerges as an important precondition for effective prevention.. (From the website). Record #8806
Item type Current location Call number Status Date due Barcode
Access online Access online Family Violence library
Online Available ON24070053

ILO Working paper, no. 116, June 2024


This report looks at the implications of addressing gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) under a work health and safety (WHS) framework. It describes the characteristics of gender-responsive WHS approaches to prevention of violence and harassment, in particular with respect to risk assessment and other WHS prevention mechanisms. Integration of rights and obligations under equality and non-discrimination legislation and WHS legislation are considered, specifically with respect to responses to GBVH within organizations and access to remedies for workers who have been harmed by such behaviour. Parallel prevention duties incumbent on organizations are also considered.

The report concludes that addressing GBVH under a WHS framework allows for proactive, systematic, collective, inclusive and publicly enforceable approaches to prevention. As such, WHS regimes have the potential to offer the kind of progressive and transformational change needed to prevent GBVH at work and ensure that women’s and other people’s equality rights, as well as their health and safety, are respected. However, given historical and ongoing resistance to the idea that GBVH is a work-related risk, a legal obligation to conduct a gender-responsive risk assessment emerges as an important precondition for effective prevention.. (From the website). Record #8806

Click on an image to view it in the image viewer