The establishment of a task force on sexual harassment at work, the inclusion of issues on harassment and violence at work into the collective bargaining agreement, internal campaigns for a harassment free workplace as well as social media campaigns were some efforts that have been taken by the national trade unions confederations in Indonesia shared during the ILO’s workshop on the promotion of safe working environment on 13 April in Jakarta.

Attended by around 60 trade unionists from national trade union confederations, the workshop focused on harassment and violence issues at work, particularly online gender-based violence. The workshop was conducted in conjunction with the observation of the World Day for Safety and Health at Work which annually falls on 28 April and the promotion of the ratification of the ILO Convention No. 190 on Violence and Harassment (C190).

“The scope of occupational safety and health (OSH) also includes the right of workers to work in a safe and healthy working environment that are free from violence and harassment. It is in line with this year’s theme of the World Day and trade unions play an important role to safeguard this right,” said Dyah Sudarto, ILO’s Programme Coordinator for C190 on Work Violence and Harassment.

Responding to the fast advancement of technology and the new trend of digital teleworking, the workshop presented resource persons from the ICT Watch, a civil society organization dealing with digital literacy and awareness. Ida Ayu Prasasti, Programme Director of ICT Watch, quoted the ILO’s latest research on the vulnerability of Indonesian workers to violence and harassment in the world of work.

Jointly conducted with the Never Okay Project, an organization deals with sexual harassment issues, the research found that 70.81 percent of Indonesian workers had experienced violence and harassment at work and 39.06 percent of the violence and harassment incidents occurred online.

“With more than 200 million users of internet in Indonesia, online gender-based violence have become more rampant. The causing factors include the gap in authority relations, lack of OSH understanding related to psychosocial issues, patriarchal culture, lack of effective policy and procedural mechanism and lack of awareness about this issue,” she explained.

During the interactive session, she encouraged the participating trade unionists to share their experiences. Some participants admitted that they were also vulnerable to the violence and harassment causing them to feel insecure and powerless. The male participants even admitted that they were also vulnerable to sexual harassment from their superiors.

Ida Ayu reminded that the violence and harassment at work could happen to anyone. Thus, she further elaborated 10 types of online gender-based violence: Cyber grooming, cyber harassment, cyber stalking, impersonating, sexting, cyber bullying, doxxing, cyber hacking, dissemination of intimate contents and sextortion.

“By having a better understanding and adequate knowledge about these different types of online gender-based violence, it is hoped that we can avoid negative impacts that can cause psychological harms, social exclusion, economic exclusion and limited mobility,” she added.

To equip the participating trade unionists with a digital skill to protect their own digital accounts, the workshop also included the session on digital safety. Indriyatno Banyumurti, Executive Director of ICT Watch, introduced types of digital frauds and an applicative tool to better protect personal digital accounts. During the practical session, some participating trade unions just learnt that their personal emails have been hacked several times and their chosen passwords were considered weak and easy to be hacked.

“This is very informative and applicative. In addition to be aware about issues related to work violence and harassment, including the online types, we also need to better protect our digital accounts,” said Maria Emeninta, the Commission of National Equality of the Confederation of All Laboour Union (KSBSI).

The workshop was concluded with the distribution of a reference platform on informational materials related to online gender-based violence that is available at s.id/kbgokerja and the safe digital tools at s.id/amanbergerak.

The participating trade unions confederations were: The Confederation of All Indonesian Labour Union (KSBSI), the Confederation of All Indonesian Trade Union (KSPSI), the Confederation of All Indonesian Trade Union-CAITU (KSPSI-CAITU), the Confederation of the Indonesia Trade Union (KSPI), the Confederation of National Trade Union (KSPN) and the Confederation of Indonesian Moslem Labour Union (K-Saburmusi).