Law

The system of rules

In the workshops we explain more about how people are protected by law in a case of (sexual) workplace harassment. How employers and companies are protected and how, by law, they have to protect their employees from (sexual) harassment in the workplace. We question if this protection suffices to prevent harassment and to combat the ongoing harassment in our workplaces. When companies are convicted for an act of failure of care, the company is being punished and not the perpetrator. Most of the perpetrators don’t even lose their jobs. May we thus conclude that perpetrators get away scot-free and victims and colleagues are the ones who are condemned?

In most countries the law protects people from (sexual) harassment in the workplace by civil law and not by criminal law. Could this be one of the reasons (sexual) harassment in the workplace still exists? Adaption of workplace sexual harassment into the Penal Code will discourage perpetrators and empower prevention of harassment.