The Trades Union Congress with the support of the International Labour Organization has launched a nationwide campaign to sensitize the public and advocate for Ghana’s Parliament to ratify ILO Convention 190. This is as a matter of urgent need to help eliminate violence and harassment at workplaces across the country.
Sexual violence and harassment are some of the serious issues at workplaces with egregious effects which are usually undermined.
Convention 190 is one of the many conventions of the International Labour Organization centered on the elimination of violence and harassment in the world of work.
TUC, with the support of the ILO is seeking to draw the attention of parliament and other relevant authorities to the need for a violence and harassment free working environment for greater output at the workplace. Ghana is one of the few African countries to have ratified 51 conventions including the eight core conventions of ILO.
At the launch of the campaign in Accra, the Secretary General of TUC, Dr. Yaw Baah spoke about the prevailing acts of violence and harassment at workplaces and admonished Ghanaians to support in the advocacy to ratify the convention in Ghana.
Senior technical specialist at the ILO Iviolata Chinyangarara, who presented an overview of the C190 convention, demystified the notion that violence and harassment always has to be about women. She contends that despite the higher number of female victims, men also face some violence and harassment.
The ILO Convention 190 has already been ratified in 9 African countries. When the TUC is successful in its advocacy and sees through the ratification of the convention, Ghana will be the tenth on the continent to do so.
