IT comes as no surprise that the anti-sexual harassment bill passed with great fanfare in March last year is not being implemented.

Some days ago, members of the National Implementation Watch Committee (NIWC), tasked by the prime minister to ensure that the law is effective, announced that both public- and private-sector entities have failed to submit compliance reports pertaining to sexual harassment at the work place. Shamefully, these entities include the army, judiciary, government departments and major media outlets.

It was a given that most organisations would continue to treat sexual harassment as a low-priority issue, law or no law (hence the need to create the NIWC in the first place). The question is why? Charges of sexual harassment continue to be perceived as another vanity or indulgence of women who, some argue, shouldn’t be working if they can’t handle interactions with men. No one takes the crime of sexual harassment seriously because there is a prevalent misconception that women who are teased, touched, assaulted, or raped at the workplace did something to invite the advances, or worse, that they enjoy the attention.

A more perverse line of thinking suggests that sexual harassment legislation is an inconvenient trapping that flips the power dynamic, allowing scheming women to exploit men on flimsy charges. This mentality was publicly demonstrated in Pakistan, albeit in a slightly different context, by former president Pervez Musharraf when he suggested that women cry rape so that they can get travel visas. And it’s a mentality that will be vindicated and perpetuated by the outcome of the sexual assault case involving former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn. His accuser seemingly fits the description offered by many harassment sceptics: inconsistent, duplicitous, and alleging assault for financial gain.

Cases such as Strauss-Kahn’s, where the accuser’s credibility is doubted, are few and far between. But the knee-jerk response to harassment claims is often misgiving. Why do deep-rooted suspicions about women’s actions and motives persist?

It seems to me that the dichotomy applied to women in the public sphere — by the international media, legislation and political rhetoric — is doing the female victims of sexual harassment a great disservice. By this dichotomy, women are either pure and asexual, or tainted and sexualised. Conceptualised differently, in a throwback to the Christian scriptures, women are either mother/virgins or sex workers. Victimhood can only be the privilege of the former category of woman; the latter are believed to have brought the trouble upon themselves through poor moral choices. The sad irony for women is that, no matter how they were perceived before, the moment they allege sexual harassment in the workplace, they are sexualised, and therefore viewed suspiciously.

The underlying contempt for women who claim to have been sexually mistreated has been highlighted in recent days. As soon as Strauss-Kahn’s accuser’s credibility came into doubt, the international media unleashed its scorn. Slate France published the accuser’s name, thereby compromising her privacy and safety. Soon thereafter, the New York Post reported that the accuser is a sex worker, a claim for which the paper is now being sued. The Post also carried a story implying that the accuser is HIV-positive, by reporting that she lives with her daughter in a building set aside exclusively for adults with HIV/AIDS.

Through such sensationalist reportage, a familiar narrative is being developed: women who allege sexual harassment are deceiving, disease-ridden sex workers who invite encounters for personal gain.

I have recently argued with many people who think that any vilification campaign against Strauss-Kahn’s accuser is justified.

To them, I like to point out that even before her credibility was questioned, the international media was more concerned about the impact of the assault allegation on the IMF chief’s career than about the security of thousands of women globally employed as hotel maids and constantly vulnerable to harassment. Moreover, demonising Strauss-Kahn’s accuser and making her a media spectacle is counterproductive, as it will foster scepticism of the charges brought by genuine victims.

Those not yet convinced of the dangers of typecasting women as either chaste or corrupt should consider the growing popularity of the Obedient Wives Club (OWC), a women’s group that teaches Muslim wives how to “keep their spouses happy in the bedroom” and has chapters in Jordan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. The OWC emphasises female submissiveness and encourages women to serve their husbands as sex workers would; the club’s logic is that more obedient and willing wives will help curb societal ills such as prostitution, trafficking and domestic violence. This logic relies on the simplistic perception of women within the good/bad framework, and concludes, much like public debates about sexual harassment, that women are ultimately sex workers. Women’s rights groups across Southeast Asia are protesting the OWC, but like the NIWC in Pakistan, to no avail.

The fact is, Pakistan’s women’s rights record is appalling. Women suffer the plague of ‘honour’ killings and domestic violence, are incarcerated by the state under the most discriminatory and insufficient rape laws, find themselves vilified by rabid clerics on private television channels, and have their schools blown up by militants. The Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act is a glimmer of hope in otherwise oppressive and discriminatory times.

To take the law’s spirit and implementation seriously, the Pakistani state and activist network must overcome the cultural prejudices not only of the Pakistani public, but also of the world at large. It’s a tall task, but one that should not be neglected.

After all, working women are among the few bright lights of Pakistan, and all efforts should be made to secure their contributions to society, the economy and Pakistan’s progressive future.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

huma.yusuf@gmail.com