Sexual Harassment and the Law in Africa

Written by a team of experts from legal, forensic, and policy backgrounds, this book presents new research into sexual violence and harassment across Africa. This first of it's kind book foregrounds the work of African scholars and presents careful research analysis and case studies that consider sexual harassment from legal, socio-economic, and cultural realities. It highlights the importance of laws around sexual harassment in Africa, the intersectional challenges it poses to women in the workplace, and the role of the feminist movement in Africa to hold perpetrators accountable and give voice to survivors of sexual harassment. The book forms part of a broader African-driven research initiative on sexual harassment and the law and is written in partnership with the Africa End Sexual Harassment Initiative (AESHI). It also explores the need to focus on best-practice benchmarks for Africa and also learning from developments in Africa. Timely and relevant, the book will be of great interest to legal and policy academic scholars, professionals, and activists working in the fields of gender policy, forensic psychology, and NGOs. It will also be useful reading for postgraduate students of law, gender studies, political science, and African studies.

Furaha-Joy Sekai Saungweme is the founder of Africa End Sexual Harassment Initiative (AESHI) and is a Georgetown Law LAWA Fellow specialising in women's rights in Africa. Furaha sits on the Editorial Board of the Berkeley University Centre on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law (BCCE) and is an LLM Advisory Committee member of the Georgetown Journal of International Law (GJIL). Carol Chi Ngang is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Public Law, National University of Lesotho, Research Fellow at the Free State Centre for Human Rights, University of the Free State and a Guest Lecturer at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. He is the UNDP Human Rights Research Chair for Lesotho and a National Research Foundation of South Africa Category C2-rated Researcher. Graham Towl is Professor of Forensic Psychology at Durham University, UK. He was the Pro Vice Chancellor Chair of the influential Durham University Sexual Violence Task Force in 2015/2016 and has co-written several books addressing sexual violence at universities in the UK. As a practitioner psychologist he has worked with sex offenders and victim survivors of sexual violence.

1. The menace of sexual harassment in the workplace - A legal and human rights concern 2. Critical reflections on equality, sexual harassment, and the right to sustainable development for women in Africa 3. Ending sexual harassment in Africa through human rights mechanisms - A critical appraisal of the application of the Maputo Protocol by the African human rights system and the ECOWAS Court of Justice 4. Single incident, big impact: Exposing the precarious relationship between sexual harassment and the persistent behaviour standard 5. A critical analysis of vicarious liability for sexual harassment in South Africa 6. Legal protection of women with disabilities against sexual harassment in Tanzania 7. Silent but pervasive: Sexual harassment against women lawyers in Uganda 8. The cost of workplace sexual harassment: A critique of the Ethiopia labour law 9. Sexual harassment and the law in Kenya: Broadening employee rights in the world of work 10. Sexual harassment and the law in Liberia 11. Sexual harassment in the Nigerian media environment 12. Sexual harassment and the law in Nigeria: Exploring the existing legal landscape and highlighting the gaps in legal and institutional frameworks 13. Mapping future directions in addressing sexual harassment in Africa