Take sexual harassment seriously, companies told

WHILE unwelcome groping or a promise of a better job in return for a kiss clearly amount to sexual harassment, what about comments like “Oh wow, you look so pretty, I can’t concentrate” or “You look sexy today”?

The line between a compliment and sexual harassment is fine and overstepping it may affect a company’s bottom line, according to Professor Bonita Meyersfeld, director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at Wits University.

Meyersfeld, who was speaking at the annual Labour Law Conference in Johannesburg yesterday, said sexual harassment went beyond the idea of inappropriate sexual advances and included instances of what she referred to as “othering”.

This, she said, included intimidation that highlighted gender, culture, religion and race. It also included remarks that may seem to be compliments, but were made based on the person’s gender. Wits University recently established a sexual harassment office to deal with a growing number of cases involving harassment between students, as well as between students and lecturers.

Meyersfeld said the new office had come across a stream of disturbing cases since it opened in February.

One of the cases involved inappropriate images contained in a Power Point presentation shown in class, which were described as demeaning but intended to be a joke.

She said the office had also received reports of staff members making inappropriate contact with students via WhatsApp or BBM.

While there are no official statistics on sexual harassment in the workplace, she said “there is a battle going on”.

Companies should take sexual harassment as seriously as fraud or other crimes. Failing to address harassment could be costly in terms of productivity, Meyersfeld said.