Sexual harassment at work under the spotlight

Major employers are failing to police sexual harassment at work because they apply a flawed understanding of its very nature, says legal researcher Lee-Anne Germanos of the Helen Suzman Foundation.

In a series of legal briefs, Germanos discussed the roots of society’s ineptitude at policing sexual crimes by looking at how it is dealt with in the criminal justice system, as well as in the workplace. Referring to recently reported cases of sexual harassment in institutions such as the African Union, the United Nations and South Africa’s human rights nongovernmental organisation Equal Education (EE), Germanos said there was not enough context and understanding on sexual harassment.

A panel of inquiry was appointed by EE last year to investigate a series of sexual crime allegations exposed by the Mail & Guardian against EE senior staff members, including general secretary Tshepo Motsepe.

The inquiry cleared all of the accused but had adverse findings against EE, including that Motsepe acted inappropriately.

“The panel of enquiry appointed to investigate Equal Education’s alleged culture of sexual harassment yielded split reports and no findings were made,” said Germanos. “A legalistic approach was adopted by the panellists who produced the majority report.

“The anonymity of the victims was used as the sole ground for dismissing their complaints. One criticism of this approach is that it displays a misunderstanding of the nature of sexual harassment and the power dynamics which invariably accompany it.

“In fact, this outcome raises all the tensions and contradictions which will need to be addressed systematically in the review and reform of labour law.”

Germanos lamented the subjective manner in which society has dealt with sexual offences, where the onus of proof was on the victim. She said sexual violence has been historically viewed as a crime of passion and lust rather than an act of violence.

In her legal brief on sexual harassment, Germanos argued that sexual attention in the workplace had enjoyed a degree of acceptability until it was arbitrarily considered untoward.