Violence and harassment in the care economy

For unacceptable forms of work to be eliminated, men and women must be free from the threat, fear or infliction of mental and physical harm. Violence that takes place in the context of work and is based on gender is known as gender-based violence, or GBV. It is a critical human rights violation that reflects and reinforces inequalities between women and men. Understandings of GBV rightly highlight the problem of violence by men against women. Yet the term is increasingly used to embrace all forms of violence that are related to gendered social expectations, social positions based on gender, or non-conformity with a socially accepted gender role. In the context of work, perpetrators are typically clients/customers, employers, co-workers and strangers. Victims are typically either clients/ customers or workers. Many higher-risk occupations are female-dominated: e.g. social care, healthcare and teaching. Additionally, workers are at particular risk of gender-based violence when they are also migrants, working within the informal economy, domestic workers or dependent family workers. One of the most concerning settings for GBV is care work that is carried out in the private home. In advanced industrialised countries, GBV in the care economy is often associated with casualised employment in homecare. The context is a rapidly growing demand for care of an aging population and marketisation of state-funded care provision. In lower-income countries, domestic work is often a highly significant employer, especially of women, and subject to very high levels of informality