Federal Ombudsperson for Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplaces Kashmala Tariq has said that insisting someone for tea or food is tantamount to harassment.

According to reports, Tariq, while speaking to students and faculty members of Baqai Medical University Karachi about workplace harassment on Monday, said that repeatedly sending greetings to someone if they hadn’t responded the first time, was also harassment.

Federal Ombudsman Kashmala Tariq addressing Students & Faculty members on "Workplace Harassment" at Baqai Medical University Karachi#FOSPAH#ZeroTolerance#HarassmentNoMore@kashmalamna @etribune @thenews_intl @HamidMirPAK @JavedChaudhry_ @ilo @geonews_urdu @ExpressNewsPK pic.twitter.com/RxrUaBcBqp

— Federal Ombudsperson-Protection Against Harassment (@fospah) January 20, 2020

“When someone is harassed, especially women, their parents start fearing what the society would think. We must put an end to this mindset of fear,” she was quoted as saying.

Tariq explained that Federal Ombudsman Secretariat for Protection Against Harassment (FOSPAH) also protected men’s rights and shared how only five cases a month was the frequency back when she took charge. “Now around 60 cases get reported every month,” she added while sharing how her department had contributed to restoring people’s confidence.

To a question, she said while 80-90% of harassment cases were reported by women, men were also harassed, but mostly by other men.

Tariq had last year also said that harassment is not limited to sexual assault only and could be of any kind. “If anyone is insisting for tea, it also comes in the form of harassment.”

She had explained later:

I said unwelcoming n unwanted text messages n stalking on social media is also harassment. And then I gave examples. Media shall not take just one line out of context pls.

— KashmalaKhanOfficial (@kashmalamna) March 19, 2019

“I said unwelcoming n unwanted text messages n stalking on social media is also harassment. And then I gave examples. Media shall not take just one line out of context pls [sic].”