Even though the Sex Discrimination Act was introduced in 1984, AHRC’s recent report on its survey on the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace, shows that sexual harassment remains widespread and efforts to curb this behaviour have stalled.
AHRC’s report Working without fear: Results of the sexual harassment national telephone survey 2012 shows that in the past five years:
- approximately 1 in 5 people 15 years and older were sexually harassed in the workplace;
- 1 in 4 women (25%) have been sexually harassed in the workplace;
- 1 in 6 men (16%) have been sexually harassed in the workplace;
- the most common targets are most likely to be women under 40;
- harassers are most likely to be co-workers;
- women are at least 5 times more likely than men to have been harassed by a boss or employer;
- more than half of all sexual harassment involved men harassing women;
- nearly a quarter of all harassment involved male harassment of men;
- Encouragingly, 51 % of bystanders took some steps to prevent or reduce the harm of the sexual harassment they were aware of.
The full report can be read here
Wise Workplace has had a lot to say about sexual harassment in the past given that this behaviour is sadly a common feature in its investigations. As AHRC’s report paints a disturbing picture of a continuing and endemic workplace problem, Wise Workplace will have more to say in the future.
