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Sexual harassment includes any type of behaviour influenced by sexual intentions, wanted or not, not requested.
What is sexual harassment called?
One speaks about sexual harassment when a person acts in order to obtain favours of sexual nature for her benefit or the profit of a third. The abuse of authority out of sexual matter can take various forms: promises, granting of advantage, threats, intimidations, constraints, pressures psychological… It can be the fact of the employer or the one of the leaders of the company, a framework, of any person responsible for framing, of recruitment, a customer of the company but also a colleague, with an aim of obtaining favours of sexual nature. The abuse of authority can have serious consequences on the victims, on their employment, their career, and their work conditions but also on their health as well physical as psychological.
The sexual harassment carries seriously reached to the dignity of the women. Sexual relationships obtained by abuse of authority can be criminally described as rape.
The sexual harassment can include degrading words, images or objects, of the offensive jokes, the physical contacts…
What are the sanctions?
The sexual harassment is recognized like an offence repressed by the Labour regulation and the Penal code. The employer must make provisions to prevent any sexual harassment in the company. In the companies of more than the 20 paid relative tendencies with the sexual harassment in the employment relationships must appear in the rules of procedure.
Penal sanctions: any person who makes an abuse of authority can be continued in front of the penal jurisdiction. The complaint must be lodged near the police station or of the gendarmerie or directly with the public prosecutor.
The incurred sorrow is the imprisonment for duration maximum one year, supplied with a fine of a maximum amount of 15.000 euros and damages (article 222-33 of the Penal code).
Disciplinary actions: the employee who makes an abuse of authority out of sexual matter is liable to a disciplinary action imposed by the employer who can go until the dismissal.
Damages: the author of the sexual harassment can be condemned by the judge to pour damages. The amount varies according to the undergone damage.
How to react in the event of sexual harassment?
All the difficulty consists in for the victim bringing evidence in a business which occurs without witness. It is very important to the employee to provide any element relating to at the same time the reality of the facts or words, likely to convince the judge: documents, letters, copies of e-mail, gifts, testimonies of the people who work with you in order to corroborate the proof of the pressures exerted by your superior…
If you are victim of sexual harassment, you must not isolate to you and you must address yourselves:
- with the staff representatives of your company;
- with a colleague of office;
- with the direction of human resources;
- with a specialized association;
- with the factory inspector;
- with the company doctor,
- with a lawyer.
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