DOL Spotlights Eliminating Gender-based Violence

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) held its first Women’s Bureau summit on June 18 to discuss collective efforts to prevent and address gender-based violence and harassment in the workforce. More than 350 leaders from the International Labor Organization and other international, federal, state, and local government officials attended Gender-Based Violence and Harassment in Focus: A Summit to Create an Equitable World of Work. The summit marked the first anniversary of the Biden-Harris administration’s release of the National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence.

“The resurgence of the #MeToo movement in 2017 raised to our collective consciousness about just how pervasive gender-based violence and harassment is in our communities, including in our places of work,” said Wendy Chun-Hoon, Women’s Bureau director. “Today’s summit will focus on the importance of identifying, responding to, and preventing gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work in order to create safe and healthy workplaces for all workers. … But today’s summit is just the beginning. We need widespread change in order to prevent and address gender-based violence and harassment in our places of work.”

Panelists discussed how the National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence and principles from ILO Convention 190 can provide a framework for preventing and addressing gender-based violence and harassment in the U.S.; how gender-based violence and harassment is a safety and health issue; and how worker-led movements are key to helping to eliminate gender-based violence and harassment.

A video of the summit can be viewed below.