Sexploitation

Today will be day two of four of a senior management induction I am receiving at Oxfam's South Asia Regional Centre here in Delhi. We will receive a full day of 'Sexploitation' - a Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse training session.


We had a homework assignment - to recall and describe an incident of sexual exploitation or abuse we might know about. We had to eliminate all named references to individuals, organizations or even countries.


I am not sure if the incident I have decided to relate is actually a case of (workplace) sexual exploitation or not. I'll paste it in here, and in my next posting I'll describe today's discussion.
My example involves two employees who were roughly peers, working in a religiously fundamentalist country for an international NGO. I do not know all the details but will relate what I understand to be true.


One male individual employed in a technical role was deployed from a large city to a small city where he made the acquaintance of a female in an administrative role. They began a relationship which involved time alone together and which they failed to keep secret. As a result conservative members of her community physically assaulted her. She required four stitches to treat a head injury. It is understood that this situation could have even resulted in death. The male was immediately redeployed to another part of the country.


I think it is certain that the individuals should have known from the cultural situation that the woman would be put at risk. The individuals may simply have been highly irresponsible but I would like to know if the male used any power to initiate the relationship. Because the consequences were severe I would like to know whether he used any apparent seniority or social ‘sophistication’ to influence the woman into risking her life. Meanwhile it is hard for me not to judge the community’s standards rather than the woman’s as being immoral.


Preventions: perhaps management should have a ‘no-relationships’ policy but this would seem unenforceable and unfair. A much better approach would be education about the culture and morals of the community to which the male had been deployed.