England: More than a third of women claim to have been sexually harassed at work

Clare Armstrong

Thirty-seven per cent say they have experienced harassment and 39 per cent have witnessed colleagues being abused.

One in four (28 per cent) claim they still have a predatory male colleague or boss who uses his position to prey on female members of staff.

Employment law specialists Slater and Gordon spoke to 2,000 women for the study, finding that suggestive or inappropriate comments or behaviour were still the most common experiences (16 per cent), but females also told of being subjected to sexually explicit or sexist conduct (11 per cent) and in six per cent of cases, groped.

A similar poll carried out this time last year showed more than half of women (51 per cent) had been sexually harassed at work but were often too scared to speak out, and even now it seems little has changed.

Just a fifth of women (21 per cent) who had been a recent victim had made a formal complaint. Reasons ranged from believing nothing would be done (36 per cent), fears they wouldn’t be believed (22 per cent), that it would harm their career (18 per cent) to claiming it was just the norm in their workplace - a depressing reality for one in five (21 per cent).

Many of those who did speak up found it made the situation worse – from negative rumours and comments from colleagues (14 per cent) to being sidelined (12 per cent) or moved (11 per cent). Nine per cent said the harassment continued and seven per cent lost their job.

Clare Armstrong, an employment lawyer at Slater and Gordon, said: “Sexual harassment at work is unlawful and can be the basis for an employment tribunal claim against the employer and the individual perpetrator. Employers are obliged to take reasonable steps to prevent it and if they fail to do so they are unlikely to have a good defence.

“There is currently no legal obligation on companies to have an anti-harassment policy, but making this mandatory is a necessary step.

“We would also like to see the reintroduction of mandatory equality questionnaires where employees can ask questions about any incidents of harassment and discrimination. Although it is good practice for employers to respond to questions, there is no statutory time frame or automatic inference of discrimination if they fail to, as used to be the case.”