Department of Sociology, Wolaita Sodo University, Sodo, Ethiopia.
PLoS One. 2021 Dec 31;16(12):e0261883. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0261883. eCollection 2021.
Women are obliged to take on vulnerable forms of employment that fail to protect their basic labor rights. Exposure to workplace violence is especially high for those women who work within the agriculture, the hotels, restaurants and catering, the transport as well as the manufacturing sectors. In this context, we explored workplace violence against women working as waitresses in various hotels, restaurants, cafeterias and grocery stores of Wolaita Sodo town, southern Ethiopia. Cross-sectional study was undertaken with descriptive and exploratory study designs. Qualitative data were collected by using in-depth interview method in which 16 waitresses were interviewed. Data were voice recorded, transcribed, and analyzed searching themes and patterns in the data. While we found that waitresses are highly exposed to workplace violence, the level of exposure to the violence varies across various circumstances, including working in large and small towns, the situation of the owners/supervisors, public's insight of the position, waitresses' ability to speak the local language, the role of the waitresses, customers' behavior and the specific context in which waitresses work. Waitresses were generally exposed to all forms of violence including spitting, throwing objects, simple physical assault, touching on private parts, and intimidation, among which verbal abuse and emotional exploitations are found to be the most common. Furthermore, the results revealed that though waitresses rarely experienced violence from female customers, the most common perpetrators involved in the practice were males. Amid widespread exposure of waitresses to all forms of workplace violence, ignorance, mostly motivated by fear of losing one's job, has been the common way waitresses respond to the violence. The study implies the vulnerability state of waitresses partly due to lack of adequate awareness regarding the rights and obligations expected of an employee when working in such organizations. This is again exacerbated by the lack of formal employment procedures in such organizations. Therefore, awareness creation and supervisory activities are expected from the media, workers' and social security office of the government, police and other concerned bodies.
女性被迫从事无法保障其基本劳动权利的脆弱就业形式。在农业、酒店、餐馆和餐饮、交通以及制造业等领域工作的女性尤其容易遭受工作场所暴力。在这种情况下，我们探讨了埃塞俄比亚南部沃尔塔-索多镇各酒店、餐馆、自助餐厅和杂货店女服务员所遭受的工作场所暴力。采用描述性和探索性研究设计进行了横断面研究。使用深度访谈方法收集了定性数据，共采访了 16 名女服务员。对访谈进行录音、转录和分析，以查找数据中的主题和模式。虽然我们发现女服务员高度暴露于工作场所暴力之下，但这种暴露程度因各种情况而异，包括在大小城镇工作、老板/主管的情况、公众对该职位的看法、服务员讲当地语言的能力、服务员的角色、顾客的行为以及服务员工作的具体背景。服务员普遍遭受各种形式的暴力，包括吐痰、扔东西、简单的身体攻击、触摸私人部位和恐吓等，其中言语虐待和情感剥削最为常见。此外，结果表明，尽管女服务员很少受到女顾客的暴力对待，但最常见的施暴者是男性。尽管服务员普遍遭受各种形式的工作场所暴力，但她们的常见反应是无知，主要是出于害怕失去工作的动机。这项研究表明，服务员处于弱势地位，部分原因是他们对在这些组织工作时应享有的权利和义务缺乏足够的认识。由于这些组织缺乏正式的就业程序，情况更加恶化。因此，预计媒体、政府的工人和社会保障办公室、警察和其他有关机构将开展宣传和监督活动。
