Amman- 17 August 2021
On August 17, 2021, “Together Against Discrimination” virtual diploma reviewed the essential steps to be considered while investigating sexual harassment and misuse of power in the workplace.
“Together Against Discrimination” training program extends over a period of 3 months, within the framework of the “I Will Not Stay Silent” project launched by ARIJ in partnership with the Facebook Journalism Project, Women in News / WAN-IFRA, the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF), and SAFE, IREX, and supported by Germany’s Federal Foreign Office. The project aims at creating a safe, pluralistic, and diverse media working environment that is free of discrimination.
This 11th session was delivered by ARIJ’s human resources consultant, Hassan Jadallah, and facilitated by Besan Jaber, the project manager. It is the last session among the obligatory list of workshops for this project.
Jadallah started the session by reviewing some critical points with regards to effective investigations and internal policies to combat sexual harassment and misuse of power within organizations. He noted that the previous sessions have mainly covered guidelines that provide essential tools to deal with complaints in the workplace.
In response to many questions posed by the trainees about the social structures and behaviors behind misuse of power and harassment, he further explained that any dive into the social and cultural reasons and reflections of such acts would require another advanced course. Jaber added that combating misuse of power in the workplace is the organization’s responsibility to ensure a safe and positive work environment and improves the performance of the employees.
Additionally, Jadallah reminded the participants of the general framework for investigations of harassment and misuse of power from the recipienance of the complaint to the final report and results.
“Together Against Discrimination” focuses on equipping participants with theoretical and practical hands-on knowledge to design and implement effective internal complaints mechanisms against various forms of misuse of authority in media institutions and general media working environments, such as fraud, corruption, harassment and hate speech, to permit stakeholders to best receive, respond, investigate and report any form of alleged complaints.
