The Gendered Price of Precarity: Workplace Sexual Harassment and Young Women's Agency

While employment is considered an avenue for young women’s empowerment, workplace sexual harassment (WSH) in Uganda and Bangladesh is widespread and detrimental to empowerment. This project aims to contribute to an understanding of the processes of empowerment of young women, which may enable them to challenge WSH. It involves comparative case study research of agro-processing firm workers and informal domestic workers in Uganda and Bangladesh, enabling the analysis of differences between the formal and informal economy and resulting implications for young women’s voice and agency. The project team will pay specific attention to everyday language on WSH and the role of social-cultural norms. The qualitative research approach will involve a cooperative inquiry with young men and women, to ensure young people’s central involvement in the project and the inclusion of their perspectives on solutions.