SAG-AFTRA establishes code of conduct to combat sexual harassment

The We Have Voice Collective is a group of 14 diverse female and non-binary musicians who have developed a code of conduct to address harrassment. Their goal is for the code to be instituted by venues, festivals, labels, schools, and for the code to be incorporated into artists’ riders.

The We Have Voice Collective, a group of female and non-binary jazz and experimental musicians, have developed a code of conduct in response to rampant sexual harrassment and abuse in the music community. The collective has urged the code—which is organized into “commitments” and “definitions”—to be adopted by festivals, organizations, venues, labels, media outlets, schools, and more.

In order to respond to sexual harrassment allegations against prominent members of the Australian theater community, directors, unions, and companies have collaborated on a new code of conduct. The code includes a ‘safe conversations officer’ acting as an ombudsman, intimacy training for employees, and ways to reduce a company or production’s reliance on one actor for financial security.

Sexual harassment and assault, and almost non-existent job security, are just some of the problems that plague migrant workers in the United States. A decade-long farm worker-led effort to push corporations to demand farmers submit to “clean labor” audits has yielded, for the first time, the introduction of shade tents, mandated water and bathroom breaks.

The night shift janitor is an easy target. Working in isolation, cleaners across the country say they have been harassed, assaulted and raped by supervisors and co-workers while tidying office buildings, shopping malls and universities, as our investigation exposed.

In an effort to protect Thai massage therapists from sexual harassment and assautl, the Asian Pacific Counseling and Treatment Centers partnered with R-A-W Power to deliver self-defense training at Hollywood Career College, teaching 34 massage therapists physical techniques and boundary-setting skills to handle inappropriate client behavior during sessions. Beyond self-defense, other community organizations are also providing education, legal advocacy and working on policy reform efforts to further protect workers.

The number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada is high, so a group of Indigenous women formed an organization called Power Our Women (POW) to teach other Indigenous women across the country self-defense skills. Participants talk about their cultures, learn physical self-defense, build confidence, and learn situational awareness. Participants describe the program as healing but difficult. POW has now reached more than 5,000 women across Canada, including remote areas in northern Manitoba.

The Fair Food Program, which educates and empowers farmworkers to report on-the-job sexual harassment, has all but eliminated sexual assaults at participating farms in an industry that otherwise is known for vast power imbalances between migrant labor and labor contractors. By giving employers key business incentives to participate and by cracking the code of silence among workers, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers-run FFP has protected employees by educating tens of thousands of them while enforcing standards through a rigorous investigation and hearings process.

Thanks to the Nirbhaya Fund, named for the victim in a notorious case of rape and murder, the Indian government poured $145 million into new women’s safety initiatives that have enabled women to go about their lives in public without fearing harassment or attacks by men. Danger as an everyday reality for women is no longer taken as a given. Among the initiatives the growing program has paid for: self-defense training, all-female police units, special rickshaws for female passengers, all-female public transit. Can it also change men's behavior? That's harder, but not impossible.

In Diepsloot, South Africa, a small office called Lawyers Against Abuse offers legal support for sexual assault cases in a violent city that traditionally does little to address the issue. The organization offers lawyers, victim advocates, legal counseling, and therapy as they go through the process. Since 2015, they have helped more than 800 women and secured 28 convictions.