Nearly 50 cleaning-sector employees from offices throughout Jaffna, Sri Lanka, discussed strategies for addressing gender-based violence at work and how unions can be instrumental in empowering workers to tackle the problem during a recent Solidarity Center training....
With local partners, the Solidarity Center conducts training on addressing and preventing sexual harassment and other forms of gender-based violence at work. Credit: Solidarity Center/Mohamed Fizer
The Solidarity Center works with a range of Sri Lankan trade unions and community organizations, assisting workers in light manufacturing, on tea plantations and other sectors to secure a collective voice through unions and improve wages, workplace safety and health, and other fundamental rights on the job.
Together with local partners, Solidarity Center conducts training around addressing and preventing sexual harassment and other forms of gender-based violence at work. And, as millions of Sri Lankans are being driven from their homes and families to seek economic opportunities overseas, Solidarity Center and human rights advocates champion legislative measures designed to inform and protect workers who leave the country for jobs.
Worker Rights Violations Rampant in Jaffna, Sri Lanka
The 2009 end of Sri Lanka’s civil war was an opportunity for workers to return to the security and protections of the formal economy, which had been destabilized by 26 years of violence. However, a new Solidarity Center survey finds that peace has yet to bring the...
Workers in Post-Civil War Jaffna
Although Sri Lanka's labor code sets the minimum wage, the maximum number of work hours per day and work days per week, and establishes rules around overtime and benefits, many employers in Jaffna, the country’s northern province, are flaunting the statutes. The vast...