“How can I help? What can I do?” asked a visitor to En avant toute(s), an NGO in Paris whose mission is to promote gender equality and end violence against women and LGBTQ young people.
Intimate Partner Violence Is a Workplace Issue
Intimate partner violence, or IPV, is often perceived as a private occurrence; in reality, it also affects virtually every aspect of a victim’s life, including their work life. So, what role organizations can play in the understanding and prevention of IPV? Data collected by a Paris-based NGO, En avant toute(s), as part of a program supported by Yves Saint Laurent Beauty (YSL), can help address this question. It shows that work is one of the few spaces where people feel they can seek help, and that colleagues may be a victim’s only ally. At the same time, the financial freedom work gives people can make it a target for abuse. So what can organizations do to help? There are four key approaches: empower employees to support each other; make telling a manger a safe thing to do; watch for changes in your employees and check your assumptions about the causes of these changes; and role model healthy relationships at work.