*Research Scholar, Department of Social Work, Bangalore University, India
**Associate Professor/Chairperson in Social Work, Department of Social Work, Bangalore University, India
The present study is aimed assessing the extent of harassment experienced by employees of various garment industries in and around Bengaluru city. A total of 480 garment workers were randomly selected from 5 garment factories including men and women. They were administered a semi-structured schedule developed by the researcher with the help of experts in the field. The schedule elicited the information on Harassment & abuse and types of abuse. Data collection was done in one setting by the researcher for a span of 6 months. Chi-square tests were applied for the responses obtained by the respondents. Results revealed that On the whole 12.5% of the respondents indicated one of the forms of Physical, psychological, sexual, and verbal harassment in their workplace. of the 12.5% of the employees reported harassment, majority of the respondents (86.7%) agreed that Verbal harassment by supervisors existed. Majority of the respondents were of the opinion that they didn't have fixed targets (93.0%) and 97.7% of them indicated that they were warnings if targets were not achieved. A large majority of them indicated (97.7%) that they leave the company at their will and there existed defined disciplinary system (97.7%). Lastly, suggestions for reducing harassment and abuse have been delineated.
Garment/textile industry, workplace harassment, psychological and verbal harassment
