From Sexual Harassment to Gender Violence at Work: The ILO's Road to Convention #190

Abstract

Abstract This article considers the political, social, and institutional forces behind the ILO's “Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190).” It traces the competing terms—worker protection, women's equality, and human rights—by which sexual harassment emerged as a proper subject for international action and how violence became the most acceptable framework for redress. With the plight of domestic workers dramatizing the issue, it took concerted efforts of women in the international labor movement, along with feminist staff within the ILO and key delegates to its International Labour Conference, to win a new labor standard.