What is the law of anonymous complaints of sexual harassment?
- According to Minister Stern - their place in the shredder.
Minister Stern is not the only one who holds this view: "The anonymous letters have become a culture of settling accounts ... so from now on the police will no longer handle anonymous letters that raise suspicions of offenses committed by police," said former Commissioner Alsheikh in 2016, in the context of sexual harassment complaints "The shredder worked," Minister Stern replied in an interview yesterday, when asked what he did as head of the IDF in the IDF when he received anonymous complaints.
The suspicion attributed to anonymous letters is natural.
As their name implies, they are anonymous.
The letters often reach their destination before coveted appointments to senior positions, with the clear aim of thwarting the appointment.
Indeed, the complaints described in them may lead - if it turns out to be true - to take action against the subject of the letter.
At the same time, the unbearable ease with which some of the captains are willing to operate the shredder's teeth, when they receive an anonymous complaint - outrageous and fundamentally wrong.
Anyone who thinks that the main motive behind anonymous letters is a conspiracy of "liquidation of accounts", completely misses an entire public of victims, and mainly denies the barriers facing those who wanted to complain about abuse of power.
Stern's approach is not only problematic but also against the law.
Minister Stern, "The crusher worked," Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
It is sad that even in 2021, it is still necessary to explain the enormous difficulty and complexity that accompany the decision of a sexual assault victim to report it in general, and especially when it comes to an assault that takes place in a hierarchical organization.
Phenomena such as harassment, scheming, denial of promotion, and even social isolation - are the lot of quite a few who expose sexual harassment in such organizations.
Such a culture of silence is also a crippling culture.
It is not for nothing that the percentage of victims who choose to file a formal complaint is minimal;
Against this background, sometimes an anonymous complaint is the only way out for a victim who seeks to stop the injury and save others from her fate (this is true, of course, for victims of crime as well).
Nowhere has it been determined that a complaint that comes in the format of an anonymous letter has been sentenced to a shredder.
On the contrary, the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act does not provide at all the treatment of a case of sexual harassment when filing a formal complaint: under section 7 of the Act the employer must deal with any suspicion of sexual harassment that has come to his notice - even if no complaint has been filed.
There are ways to investigate an anonymous complaint, in a way that will dispel or confirm the fear that this is a "settlement of accounts" and false information.
Contrary to many people's beliefs, various facts can be ascertained;
Check if there are other materials that can support or refute what is said in the complaint, question witnesses, check security cameras, and more.
From here to the shredder - the road is long.
Lt. Col. (Res.) Efrat Nachmani-Bar was the Deputy Chief Military Advocate and the IDF Representative in the Knesset regarding the enactment of the Law for the Prevention of Sexual Harassment
Col. (Res.) Sharon Zaggi-Pinchas, was the Chief Military Prosecutor and the one who led the reform in the IDF with regard to the rights of victims and victims of crime.