Issues in Human Resource - Sexual Harassment

ISSUES IN HUMAN RESOURCE:

SEXUAL HARASSMENT

DEFINITION

In Malaysia, the frequent occurrence of sexual harassment in workplace has becoming an alerting notion as more and more women are joining the workforce. While men may be sexually harassed, the most common victims are always women. "Sexual harassment is when one employee makes continued, unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, to another employee, against his or her wishes." (Heathfield.M.Susan, Para. 2) ." When this behaviour interferes with a person's work performance and creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment, it is considered harassment. The behaviour doesn't have to be directed at someone for it to be offensive to them." (Waldrop Anne Sharon, Para. 2). In Tennessee, their local courts even describe sexual harassment as any unequal treatment of an employee that would not occur if it's not because of the employee's gender. The conduct does not have to be sexual in nature but would still create a severe uncomfortable feeling. Thus, sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination and so it is an illegal practice that should not occur in a working environment.

A case of sexual harassment will only result in low morale and poor productivity of the work place. Some forms of sexual harassment are obvious such as making inappropriate comments or touching another person deliberately. However some other forms may not be obvious as harassment perception vary from one employee to another. As such, an employee who overhears two other employee sharing a dirty joke may be offended and thus something that the third party overhears may be considered as sexual harassment. Some other examples of sexual harassments are:

* Eyeing somebody inappropriately while making a comment

* Passing around dirty jokes that somebody got from the internet

* Sharing details about someone's sex lives publicly

STATE OF LAW

In the United States, sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act applies to employers with fifteen or more employees.

In Malaysia, there aren't any law to deal specifically with sexual harassment cases. However, there is only one law in existence that comes close in dealing with sexual harassment issues which is the Penal Code, section 509.

The Penal Code, section 509 provides that:

"Whoever, intending to insult the modesty of any women, utters any words, makes any sound or gesture or exhibit any object, intending that such word or sound shall be heard, or such gesture or object shall be seen by such woman, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 5 years or with fine, or with both".

However, because the Penal Code, section 509 only deals with the physical aspect, most sexual harassment cases are handled by the police and claims made under Penal Code, section 509. Nevertheless, the Industrial Relations Act 1967 which is the law that protect the individual right of every employee, may be altered to provide certain actions against the harasser. In light of recent events, the Ministry of Human Resource has encourage all employers to adopt the Code of Practice so that it can be used to curb sexual harassments act and acts as internal mechanism to prevent sexual harassment at the workplace. The Code of Practice outlines the statement of purpose, legal definition of harassment, descriptions of behaviour that constitutes harassment, how employees should handle harassment, how the company handles