Calling time on sexual harassment in the workplace
A pioneering new advice line, staffed by experts, is providing valuable support for British women,
It was announced to much fanfare, with a glamorous celebrity patron and a sizeable cash injection. So when I meet Deeba Syed, senior legal officer for the new workplace harassment advice line funded by Time’s Up UK and launched by Emma Watson, at its HQ in London’s Old Street, I am expecting a state-of-the-art call centre with inspirational slogans on the walls.
Instead, the Rights of Women office consists of a couple of modest rooms just big enough for a desk and a few phones. But, as I quickly realise, it is the women taking the calls who make this organisation extraordinary.
Rights of Women has been providing free, confidential legal advice since 1975. Its phones are staffed by specialist solicitors and barristers with experience advocating for women who have suffered violence, abuse and discrimination. Its newest helpline, which launched in August, deals specifically with workplace sexual harassment; the first in England and Wales to do so.
In just over three months, it’s been inundated with calls from women who have suffered serious, sustained sexual harassment while simply trying to do their jobs. any have been persecuted for reporting the harassment to their managers or asked to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAS).
It is, Syed says, abundantly clear that this problem is endemic in the British workplace.
When the 31-year-old former employment lawyer first launched the helpline, she thought they would get lots of calls tentatively asking:
“Is this sexual harassment?” But as Syed explains: “By and large, those who ring us are in no doubt that they are experiencing serious, often unrelenting, harassment and are then being punished for calling it out.”
It is estimated that four out of five women don’t report sexual harassment or assault at work. Those who do take legal action are granted scant provision. Cuts in legal aid have meant women typically have not pursued cases unless they could afford expensive professional advice. Rights of Women set up the helpline to meet that need, supporting women to move forward with grievance processes, raise claims at employment tribunals or just to take that first step of reporting the harassment to their employer.
“We are an impartial service, there to give women the confidence to know what their options are,” says Syed. “We are able to advise at any stage. And we believe everyone who calls us.”
Many women, she explains, are in a bad way when they ring. “Panic attacks, PTSD, depression, anxiety so serious that they’ve had to be signed off sick from work,” she adds.
The line is staffed by women, mainly because so many women find that when they report abuse – often to male superiors – they are not believed. “Only two women have told us that the man has been suspended [from work],” says Syed. “I spoke to a woman who told me she had been sexually assaulted and they had suspended her but not him. We often get women telling us they have been suspended ‘for their own mental health’.”
Syed and her colleagues have been particularly shocked by the volume of women ringing in to report having been raped by a colleague. “These women have to be in the office the next day,” she says, shaking her head. “We are hearing about these very
serious things happening to young women and they go to HR and are told ‘it’s a criminal offence, we can’t do anything’. Employers hear ‘sexual assault’ and ‘rape’ and they don’t want anything to do with it, they say ‘you should go to the police’ and try to push back the liability.”
Acas (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service), the statutory body that advises employers and employees on workplace rights, is clear that an employer should carry out a “fair and thorough” investigation if informed about sexual harassment.
But, Syed says, many try to shift responsibility at any cost. “If there is criminal activity going on, they should be conducting an investigation,” she says. “If there was a robbery they wouldn’t say, ‘oh we’re just not going to do anything about it’, they’d do a full investigation. It should be the same thing. ‘Somebody is raping people in our building, who is that person, we want to know everything about this.’ ”
This is why, Syed adds, many women just don’t speak up at the time (an oft-repeated criticism of the accusations made as part of the Metoo movement): because they can be ignored or sidelined. “Getting sacked is the number one reason [women] don’t want to come forward. The truth of the matter is it’s much simpler to leave your job than it is to fight your employer. Often the aftermath is much worse than the incident itself,” she says.
“They start getting punished: taken off email chains, dropped from projects, their workload or hours are reduced. It escalates to an attack on her as a person, and an attack on her ability to do her job. We took a call last night where a man had been sexually harassing a woman in the workplace, she made a complaint and was put on performance review.”
This should all, Syed says, be treated as violence against women: “We understand that in a domestic setting, but we have not understood the picture in the workplace.”
They have also had calls from women asked to sign NDAS. They would never tell someone not to sign, Syed insists, but they do advise women not to sign anything that might prevent them from going to the police in the future, and to have a lawyer check the wording.
Ultimately, according to Syed, the aim of Rights of Women is to empower women with information. They are not a counselling service, nor do they try to push legal action – they simply tell women what their options are. After all, Syed says: “There is nothing as disempowering as sexual harassment.”
Eleanor Steafel reports ‘It is estimated that four out of five women don’t report sexual harassment or assault at work’