Sexual Harassment in Public Authorities: Only “Tip of the Iceberg”?

Created: 06/29/2022, 15:54

State women's representative Heidi Deuschle (rl), district women's committee chairwoman Erika Bock and lawyer Nathalie Oberthür.

© Marijan Murat/dpa

Experts assume that the number of unreported cases of sexual harassment in state authorities is sometimes high.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, there have been 230 complaints to the state administration in connection with sexual harassment in the workplace in the past three years.

"That only shows the tip of the iceberg," said the chairwoman of the district women's council of the German trade union federation, Erika Bock, on Wednesday in the state parliament's interior committee.

Stuttgart - There must be more underneath that is not on record, where those affected do not talk about it.

There is a good legal framework, but it is rarely applied in reality because harassment is difficult to prove, said Cologne labor lawyer Nathalie Oberthür at the hearing.

Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) said he was not talking about individual cases, each case was one too many.

He reported 11 suspected cases of sexual harassment to the police in the first quarter of 2022.

Strobl referred to a large number of registration offices.

The police want to create a leadership culture that prevents people from looking the other way and being ignored.

dpa