Work Place Sexual Harassment among Female Employees in Lalitpur District

Abstract

Sexual harassment is increasingly viewed as one of the most terrible forms of violence against  women in the workplace. Women are more likely to suffer from sexual harassment because  they are supposed to have lack of power, social security and self confidence as well as they  remain silent against sexual harassessment (Dhakal,2009,Rankin, 2010).The objective of this  study was to find out sexual harassment faced by female employees in their work place. 

This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out during April 6, 2014 - May 3, 2014  in thirteen government & semi-government organizations. Total 111 female employees  were included as study sample. Self-administered semi-structured questionnaire was used.  Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (Kruskal Wallis test) was used to find the  association among the age, marital status, education, experience of work, position of job and  sexual harassessment. 

Regarding Sociodemographic information 38.7% were age group of 31to 40 years, 45% were  Brahmin, 91% were Hindu, 67.6% were married and 72% completed secondary level and  above education, 40.5% had less than 10 years working experience where as 72.1% were  permanent employees and 85.6% were holding non officer post. Among 111, 42 (37.8% )  had encountered sexual harassment by their male colleague in their work place. Outof 42  respondents who faced sexual harassment; 69% had psychological, 33% had physical health  problems and 24% had impact in their performance.  

In conclusion, significant association was found between experience of sexual harassment and  job position (p=0.033) and level of education (p=0.001).The study also revealed that sexual  harassment had caused negative impact in health and performance. Sixty two percent had  psychological &, 32.1% had physical problems and 20.1% experienced low job performance.  Majority (86.4%) of the respondents felt the need of the goverment to develop strong policy  in the prevention of sexual harassment at work place.