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Sexual harassment: Every eleventh employee affected

2019-10-25T09:43:46.830Z


Every eleventh employee has been sexually harassed in the job for the past three years. This shows a new study. The perpetrators are mostly male - and in an industry the risk for employees is particularly high.



Inappropriate jokes, harassment, touch: One in eleven workers (9 percent) has experienced sexual harassment in the workplace over the past three years. Women were more than twice as likely to be affected as men, according to a new study by the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency.

More than 1,000 employees were questioned about the extent of sexual harassment in the workplace and how to deal with it. According to the survey, respondents were most frequently hit by verbal harassment, such as sexualized comments or inappropriate jokes, at 62 percent. This was followed by harassment from looks and gestures, unwanted touches or physical approaches.

For most of the experience, the study found that it was not a one-off event - eight out of ten respondents were harassed more than once. In addition, more than 80 percent of those affected exclusively or predominantly men as perpetrators .

"Sexual harassment in the job is a serious problem and can have serious consequences for those affected," said Bernhard Franke, acting director of the Anti-Discrimination Agency. It is in the interest of the companies to intervene here through clear guidelines and measures - for example, through firm contact persons and mandatory training for executives.

Overriding customers

According to the study, more than half of the attacks were committed by third parties (53 percent) - customers, patients, clients. 43 percent of the harassing persons were colleagues, one fifth were superiors or higher-ranking persons.

Basically, there is a risk of sexual harassment in all industries, according to the study. Nonetheless, it is clear that employees were most affected by occupational groups who come into contact with customers on a daily basis. So affected people worked mainly in certain industries:

  • Health and social work: 29 percent
  • Trade: 12 percent
  • Manufacturing: 11 percent
  • Education: 10 percent

"When customers bother, employers have to intervene immediately to protect their employees," says Bernhard Franke. "This can lead to a local or house ban and may not be trivialized and ignored as a" professional risk ", for example, in the catering or retail sector."

The study shows that those affected often perceive sexual harassment as humiliating, pejorative and threatening.

  • Thus, 48 ​​percent of affected women said that they had felt that the harassment had reduced them to a very high degree and depreciated them . For men it was 28 percent.
  • 41 percent of women and 27 percent of men reported moderate to very severe mental stress .
  • Thirty percent of women and 21 percent of men felt the situation was moderate to severe .

While two-thirds of the respondents said they had resisted verbally immediately after the harassment, four out of ten people did not contact third parties until later, for example:

  • Colleagues: 47 percent
  • Supervisors: 36 percent
  • Friends or family: 15 percent
  • Counseling Centers or Therapeutic Facilities: 11 percent

However, around 40 percent of employees do not know whether their company has its own complaints office - even though employers are required by law to set up such offices and inform employees.

More about the study

Who commissioned the survey?

The study "Strategies for dealing with sexual harassment in the workplace - solution strategies and intervention measures" was conducted from June 2018 to May 2019 on behalf of the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency. Authors are Monika Schröttle from the Institute for Empirical Sociology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (IfeS) and Henry Puhe from the SOKO Institute in Bielefeld.

What data was collected?

The study is based on several data collections: a telephone survey of 1531 persons carried out by the Bielefeld SOKO Institute, a qualitative study section with in-depth interviews with stakeholders, focus group discussions with various actors (including supervisors, colleagues, works councils, women's representatives and lawyers), as well as evaluated legal cases and a systematic literature analysis ,

How meaningful are the results?

The telephone survey is representative according to the authors.

The authors of the investigation therefore see primarily superiors in charge : they would have to intervene consistently and promptly in the case of sexual harassment, as well as establish commitments, measures and sanctions. In addition, they should regularly ask employees if and what problems there are in the operation regarding sexual harassment.

According to the study, only one percent of those involved themselves took legal action. Among other things, they cited lack of information, fear of lack of anonymity and negative consequences, and attempts to solve the problem themselves.

A similar poll conducted by the Anti-Discrimination Agency last revealed in 2015 that one in six women and one in fourteen men in the workplace had an experience that they or their own identified as "sexual harassment".

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2019-10-25

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