Indian women in informal sector 'learn to ignore' sexual abuse at work
The HinduFrom lewd comments to demands for sex, women working in India's vast informal sector rarely report sexual harassment for fear of losing their jobs, labour rights campaigners said on Wednesday, three years after the #MeToo movement began. From street vendors and factory workers to domestic workers, 95% of Indian women work in the informal sector and many are exploited regularly, despite a law ordering employers to set up committees to resolve harassment complaints, Human Rights Watch said. “The #MeToo movement helped to shine a light on violence and harassment at work, but the experiences of millions of women in India's informal sector remain invisible,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, HRW South Asia director. “These can strengthen women so that this sense of isolation that they feel while trying to report sexual harassment is not there,” she said, adding they can also raise women's awareness on their rights.