The entertainment industry has succeeded in drawing attention to the ways that sexual assault and harassment can become pervasive when employees have limited options for reporting abuse and employers have the power to blacklist. We at Justice at Work (formerly Friends of Farmworkers) see these same factors leading to abuses against the far less visible but incredibly vulnerable women who make up Pennsylvania’s low-wage workforce. For our clients—who work in industries like agriculture, meatpacking, housekeeping and restaurants—saying #MeToo and speaking out against unfair treatment in the workplace can wind up being more costly than simply keeping quiet and enduring whatever abuse they may be facing. Furthermore, many of these individuals face additional barriers to reporting because of their immigration status or limited English proficiency. These differences create asymmetrical power dynamics that cause this population to remain invisible, all while the staggering rates of abuse continue to grow.

A 2016 study by the EEOC’s Select Taskforce on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace found that 25 percent of women report having experienced sexual harassment at work (“Report of Co-Chairs Chai R. Feldblum & Victoria A. Lipnic”). This number spikes to 80 percent for female farmworkers, however, as Irma Morales Waugh documented in her 2010 survey of 150 farmworker women in California’s Central Valley (“Examining the Sexual Harassment Experiences of Mexican Immigrant Farmworking Women”) and further documented by Human Rights Watch in 2012 (“Cultivating Fear: The Vulnerability of Immigrant Farmworkers in the US to Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment”).