According to a representative from the anti-polio program, a guy was arrested in Karachi for sexually harassing a female polio worker.
The coordinator of the anti-polio effort, Dr. Shahzad Baig, confirmed that the accused, who was working on the same project, had also been fired.
Such harassment, according to Baig, violates basic human rights, and such behavior will not be condoned.
The number of incidents of workplace harassment is continuing to climb in the country.
Kashmala Tariq, the Federal Ombudsperson for the Protection of Women at Workplaces, ruled earlier this week that a senior official of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) should be fired and compensated Rs2 million for sexually harassing a female employee.
Kashmala wrote in her ruling that on January 20, 2020, a lady working on a contingency basis at Pemra's headquarters in Islamabad submitted an online complaint with the ombudsperson accusing one of Pemra's directors-general, Haji Adam, of harassing her.
The order quoted the complainant as saying that when she denied Adam's "sexual favours," he became "rude, unpleasant, and degrading" to her.
"By combining all of the pieces of evidence" the complainant has proven her complaint that [Adam] sexually harassed her [at] her employment on November 11, 2019," according to the judgment.
Adam, on the other hand, failed to support his claim that the complainant had unjustly implicated him in the case "at the instigation and conspiracy of someone else," it noted.
The ombudsperson said action will be taken against Adam under the Protection Against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2010, and that he would be fired and ordered to pay the complainant Rs2 million in compensation.
She also found another Pemra official, Fakhruddin Mughal, to be a "facilitator" of Adam, and decided that he, too, would be prosecuted under the 2010 Protection Against Harassment of Women at Work Act.
Mughal's demotion was ordered by Tariq, coupled with a compensation payment of Rs500,000 to the complainant.
"I think it essential to ask the Pemra top management," the ombudsperson said in her order.
