DESPITE THE best efforts of corporate Australia, sexual harassment appears to be continuing unabated, with more than one-quarter of all Australian adults admitting they have been the victims of such attacks of experiencing workplace a national telephone survey has revealed.
DESPITE THE best efforts of corporate Australia, sexual harassment appears to be continuing unabated, with more than one-quarter of all Australian adults admitting they have been the victims of such attacks a national telephone survey has revealed.
20 Years On: The Challenges Continue . . . Sexual Harassment in the Australian Workplace reports the findings of a national household telephone survey of 1006 Australians between the ages of 18 and 64 years conducted by the Gallup Organization on behalf of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) in 2003.
In the survey, 28 per cent of adult Australians (41 per cent of Australian women and 14 per cent of men) stated that they had experienced sexual harassment, with two-thirds experiencing sexual harassment at the workplace.
In addition, 15 per cent of adult Australian women and six per cent of men said that they experienced workplace sexual harassment within the five years prior to the survey, with 22 per cent of these women and men stating that the harassment occurred in the last 12 months. This translates to an estimated 230,000 workers in Australia claiming to have experienced sexual harassment at work in 2002-03.
In response, Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward has launched guidelines for employers on how to meet their obligations to prevent and eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984.
Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: A Code of Practice for Employers clearly explains what constitutes sexual harassment, how employers can be liable and how they can avoid liability by taking all reasonable steps to prevent this occurring in their workplaces.
The findings in these surveys suggest that employers, employer associations, unions and anti-discrimination agencies such as HREOC must continue to focus on educating workplace participants of their rights and responsibilities, take action to prevent sexual harassment, and deal effectively and comprehensively with harassment when it occurs. The challenges continue.
The sexual harassment in the workplace resources are available online at http://www.humanrights.gov.au/sex_discrimination/sexual_harassment.html
