Government Immediately Issues Guidelines For Preventing Sexual Violence At Work

Illustration of workers (ANTARA)

The Minister of Manpower (Menaker) Ida Fauziyah emphasized that immediately he would issue guidelines for preventing sexual violence in the workplace as an effort to prevent sexual violence against female and male workers. "The potential for male workers to experience sexual violence is also possible, so that protection is not only for women," he said on the sidelines of visiting the cigarette production site in Karangrekah Village, Bae District, Kudus Regency, quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, May 31. Guidelines for preventing sexual violence in the work environment, he said, are a guide for the prevention and handling of sexual violence in the workplace. This includes regulating the need for a task force in the workplace. The existence of the task force (task), he said, was only to ensure the absence of sexual violence in the workplace. "The case requiring workers to be'staycation' to be able to extend contracts, should not happen again. We do not want it to be an 'iceberg' phenomenon," he said. Meanwhile, the handling of the case of female employees in a company in West Java who were asked to carry out a "staycation" as a condition for the extension of the work contract, using Law Number 12 of 2022 concerning the Elimination of Sexual Violence (UU TPKS). Meanwhile, the criminal case was handed over to the police. During the visit, the Minister of Manpower also wanted to know the fulfillment of the company's obligations in providing health protection for its workers, especially women who gave birth.

Based on the provisions, pregnant workers get 45 days of leave before and 45 days after giving birth. As a result, the company has fulfilled it, including providing preventive and protective protection. Later, the Directorate General of Labor and Health Supervision (Ditjen Binwasnaker and K3) and the Director General of Industrial Relations will also socialize guidelines for preventing sexual harassment and violence in the workplace and handling tuberculosis (TB) in the workplace, said Ida Fauzyah.