SAPS captain gets R50 000 in sexual harassment case
SEXUAL harassment has no place in the working environment.
The legislature continuously makes the message clearer and louder by passing legislation designed to eradicate sexual harassment from the workplace, the Labour Court said in awarding a police captain R50000 after she was sexually harassed.
The SAPS was ordered to pay the woman, who cannot be named, after it was found to have dragged its feet in investigating her claims that her superior was sexually harassing her.
Judge Zolashe Lallie said: “Sexual harassment is used, in most cases, by employers and employees entrusted with some level of authority to oppress, exploit and dominate those with less or no authority at all.
“In this case, like in most cases, the victim of sexual harassment is a woman and the perpetrator a man,” she said.
“Like all employees, women go to work to sell their skills and labour and to practise their professions to earn an income, not for the sexual pleasure of their employers or other employees, irrespective of the positions they hold,” Judge Lallie said.
The applicant told the court that during 2013 and 2014, her supervisor made sexual advances towards her.
She lodged her first formal grievance of sexual harassment against her superior in June 2015. She was told to report to another officer while the investigation was being undertaken into her complaints, which included that her superior “touched her breasts with his thumb on occasions, which made her uncomfortable”.
The investigation dragged its heels until the applicant reported it to the provincial head office. In June 2017, the Sexual Harassment Task Team took over the investigation. Her superior, however, continued to work in the same office as her.
The applicant reported that her first encounter with her superior was when she was working in the human resources environment. She always felt that he was in her private space and as a result she tried to avoid him as much as possible.
In 2014, she was placed under his supervision when the harassment started. He came up from behind and put his arm around her shoulders and touched her breasts.
She said when she told him to stop, he started victimising her by taking away responsibilities that would normally fall on her in terms of seniority.
A typist in the SAPS also testified she saw the officer touching the applicant making inappropriate comments to her.
When the investigations into her grievances came to nothing and she reported the matter to head office, the alleged sex pest was transferred to another division in September 2017.
The supervisor returned to the police station and the applicant was instructed to be transferred. Subsequent letters of complaint to the superiors went unanswered so she turned to the CCMA, which referred the matter to the Labour Court for adjudication.
Judge Lallie found that the time the SAPS took to investigate was unreasonably long and that the steps taken to eliminate the sexual harassment were inadequate.