What counts as workplace harassment?
For most people, the answer probably seems obvious: unwanted sexual comments, advances or inappropriate touching. But workplace harassment is not always that straightforward. Sometimes it can look like humiliation, discrimination, intimidation or the misuse of authority.
A recent judgment of Pakistan’s Federal Constitutional Court has brought this question back into the spotlight.
The case, Usman Shahid v. Nadia Sarwar, involved a workplace complaint at the National Bank of Pakistan. Nadia Sarwar had complained about the conduct of senior colleagues, including an intimidating work environment, intrusive questions about her leave and personal circumstances, and other objectionable behaviour.
The Federal Ombudsman had found against the accused, and the Islamabad High Court upheld the decision. The matter eventually reached the Federal Constitutional Court, which set aside the High Court’s judgment.
And this is where things get interesting.
What did the Court say?
The Court held that, under the definition applicable to the case, harassment had to have a sexual element to fall within the workplace harassment law.
In simple terms, the Court said that something can be unpleasant, inappropriate or harmful without necessarily being legally actionable as harassment under this law. If it does not have the required sexual character, it may instead be dealt with through ordinary workplace disciplinary procedures.
That is a significant way of drawing the line.
Because workplace mistreatment does not always look sexual.
Sometimes it looks like a woman being singled out.
Sometimes it looks like her authority being undermined.
Sometimes it looks like invasive questions about her personal life.
Sometimes it looks like being humiliated in front of colleagues.
Sometimes it is an atmosphere where she is constantly made to feel uncomfortable, unwelcome or afraid to speak.
None of that necessarily involves a sexual advance.
And that is where the judgment becomes troubling from a social perspective.
Because the law itself has changed
There is an important detail here.
The events in this particular case happened in 2012 and 2013, before the 2022 amendment to the workplace harassment law. That matters when determining which version of the law applied to the dispute.
But the 2022 amendment also tells us something important about how Pakistan’s law now understands harassment.
Parliament expressly added gender-based discrimination that “may or may not be sexual in nature.”
It also recognised that a single incident causing discomfort, fear or panic can amount to harassment in the circumstances specified by the law.
So the law today recognises something many women already know from experience:
Not everything that makes a workplace unsafe or degrading is sexual.
And this is where the social consequence matters
When we define harassment too narrowly, we also risk narrowing what society considers worthy of being taken seriously.
A woman does not need to be sexually propositioned before she can feel intimidated.
She does not need to be touched before she can feel violated.
She does not need to receive a sexual message before repeated humiliation, discrimination or abuse of authority begins affecting her sense of safety at work.
And perhaps this is the uncomfortable part.
Women are already routinely taught to tolerate behaviour that would make them uncomfortable.
Don’t be “too sensitive.”
Maybe your boss was just angry.
Maybe he didn’t mean it that way.
Don’t make an issue out of it.
Ignore it.
Adjust.
This is particularly familiar in workplaces where hierarchy makes speaking up difficult. The person behaving badly may be a senior colleague, a supervisor or someone who has control over an employee’s leave, performance evaluation or career.
In that environment, telling women that only certain kinds of behaviour qualify as harassment can have consequences beyond the courtroom.
It can reinforce the idea that unless the behaviour is explicitly sexual, it is simply something they have to endure.
But workplace harassment is also about power
This is what can get lost when the conversation becomes entirely about whether something was sexual.
Workplace harassment is not only about what was said or done.
It can also be about who has the power to do it and what happens when the other person objects.
A senior employee repeatedly humiliating a junior woman is not necessarily doing so because of sexual interest.
A manager making invasive demands about a woman’s personal circumstances may not be making a sexual advance.
A workplace culture that consistently treats women as less credible, less capable or more difficult may not involve anything sexual at all.
But these experiences can still affect whether someone feels safe enough to work, speak, complain or simply exist comfortably in that environment.
That is why the 2022 amendment’s wording matters.
It recognises gender discrimination that may or may not be sexual in nature.
The question we should be asking
The issue is not whether every unpleasant workplace interaction should be labelled harassment.
Of course there must be a legal threshold.
The issue is what happens when that threshold becomes so closely associated with sexual conduct that other forms of gendered mistreatment become easier to dismiss.
Because for many women, the first sign of a hostile workplace is not a sexual proposition.
It is being told, directly or indirectly, that speaking up will cost them something.
And when that behaviour is dismissed as merely “inappropriate” or something that should be dealt with internally, what message does that send?
How much discomfort is a woman expected to tolerate before the law considers it serious?
The answer should not depend on whether someone crossed a sexual line.
Because sometimes the problem is not that a woman was sexualised at work.
Sometimes the problem is simply that she was made to feel that she did not belong there.
And that, too, can change the way a woman experiences her workplace.