By Priscilla Li Ying, Head of Office, UNFPA Mauritius
We like to say “zero tolerance” for workplace violence until it’s someone we know, someone too senior, or someone too valuable to confront.
Mauritius prides itself on stability, literacy, and good governance. We have policies, plans, and progressive laws. We tick boxes. And yet, gender-based violence in the workplace remains one of its most persistent blind spots, often quietly normalised, occasionally whispered about and rarely addressed in a way that changes anything.
We do indeed say zero tolerance but what we really practice is plausible deniability. Because let’s face it, when a woman is harassed at work, the advice is still, “Keep quiet, or it’ll follow you.” In a country where reputation travels faster than justice, silence is survival.
Take Sharon, she is a composite of too many real women in Mauritius. She enters the technology sector full of promise. Then come the comments, the messages, or the so-called harmless jokes. She hesitates, but Human Resources (HR) is not trained for this, and senior leadership does not want scandal. Eventually, Sharon does not just leave the job. She leaves the industry. Sometimes, the country. And with her goes everything we have invested in her education, her leadership, her contribution to Mauritus’ future. We do not just lose women. We lose everything they could have built.
We have made progress but let’s not confuse laws with culture change
Mauritius has ratified the International Labor Organization Convention 190 and will hopefully be passing the Domestic Abuse Bill this year. These are powerful signals of political will. But laws do not enforce themselves. Too many policies live on paper, not in practice. And while we celebrate progress, women continue to quietly exit the workforce.
That is why UNFPA partnered with Business Mauritius to go beyond awareness and create real tools for action. Together we co-developed the Workplace GBV Toolkit called ECHO (Eliminating Conflict and Harassment at the Office). This is a practical guide for transforming culture, not just compliance. Two months after its launch, over 40 companies across sectors will be implementing the initiative including confidential reporting systems, trained HR teams, and leadership buy-in. The results are already visible: women are speaking, companies are listening, and managers are learning that when women feel safe, they don’t just stay, they lead.
Mauritius has the lowest female labor force participation among middle-income countries in Eastern and Southern Africa. Only 42 per cent of women are in the labor force, compared to 68 per cent of men. This is not just about gender-based violence. It is about systems designed without women in mind, that treat caregiving as a personal issue, maternity exits as routine, and attrition as inevitable. HR notices the pattern but often can’t or even won’t challenge it
We cannot build a high-income country with low-trust workplaces. We cannot talk about inclusive growth while women opt out or are forced out of industries they helped build. And we cannot claim progress if we are losing women, not by force but by design.
Workplace GBV is not just a women’s issue. It is an economic liability. It limits innovation, increases attrition, and deters future talent from even entering the room. If you would not invest in a business with no risk management, why accept a workplace culture with no accountability? This is not a “soft” issue. It’s a hard one, about values, leadership, and the kind of economy we want.
A different story for Sharon and Mauritius
I still have hope. Change is happening, quietly in some places, boldly in others. Boardrooms are having harder conversations. Survivors are coming forward not because they were not brave before, but because there are inklings of a system they can trust.
Our next step is scaling up. Taking this model into the informal economy. Into the public service. Into the parts of the country that do not yet see workplace safety as part of their bottom line.
Sharon deserves better. So does Mauritius. In this version of the story, Sharon reports. She is supported, not sidelined. She stays, she thrives, she mentors others. And the company that once saw GBV as a side issue? It becomes a place people want to work and stay.
Let’s make that story a reality. Safer workplaces mean stronger businesses, a more resilient economy, and a fairer Mauritius. We have the tools. We have the model. Now it’s time to scale it because culture doesn’t change by accident. It changes because we decide it must.
